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dreamtofus · 5 hours ago

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141 x POC!GN Intelligence Operative - Debrief 1 Author's Notes: Does this make sense? I don't know. I'm just started to type and this happened. Warnings: MDNI, Angst

Like usual, the 141 had gotten together for dinner. But tonight was different as tonight you decided to grace them with your presence.

But instead of sitting in your normal seat with the 141, you were sitting with the new guys. They couldn’t help but stare. Here you are in all your glory but not for them.

“Why are they with them?” asks Ghost as he shoves his fork in his mouth. Gaz and Price shrug as they couldn’t understand why you chose the new guys over them. The three immediately voice their confusion while Soap just remains silence. His silence rang immediate alarms in the other three as John MacTavish is never quiet.

“Talk,” Price commands. Ghost and Gaz shift their attention to the Scotsman. Johnny drops his fork and begins to talk and talk and talk. He explains to the three what had happened. As he talks, he keeps his gaze on you and Russ. Why couldn’t that be him and you? Heck, at this point, he’ll share you if he has too.

“And I’ll be honest, I don’t know what Russ did exactly but whatever he did, it got them to eat dinner with him and those fuckers.” And with that, Soap turns back to the three. Ghost and Price just stare at him, lost in thought, while Gaz sits back with his arms crossed.

“He listened,” Gaz states like it was matter of fact. The three look on confused. With an exasperated breath, Gaz sits straights up and explains it to the three.

“People like them and I can’t just live. We have to go above and beyond and be perfect just so we can even get an ounce of respect that you guys get. If we don’t, we are immediately labeled as an issue” Johnny tries to interrupt him but Gaz quickly shuts him down. “Look at their resume. Top of their class, scored exceptionally high on all of their exams, trained by Laswell herself for fucks sake and how many offers did they get after the academy?” Kyle takes a pause to look at the three.

“None,” grunts out Price.

“And what did it say on their file? What was the supposed reason why so many teams didn’t want them?” continues Kyle.

Ghost answers him. “Too aggressive. Doesn’t respect authority.”

“And was that the case?” Kyle stares down at the three.

Johnny lets out a choked out “no.” From the moment you got here, you were sweet. Any possible acts of defiance were just you doing your job — asking the right questions and making sure your voice was being heard. You were kind to each and every one of them even when they switched up on you. Any recent aggression (if you can even call it that) has been well-deserved as the 141 each began to take the piss out on you.

“So instead of labeling them as a problem like everyone else, Russ here listened and realized that they’re alone and just needs a team, so,” Kyle turns back to look at you with the new guys, “he gave them one.” Kyle turns back around and returns to his food, picking at it with his fork.

Soap stares straight at you and realizes his mistake. He labeled you as the bad guy. Fuck. They all did the minute they agreed to put the 141 over you. It wasn’t your fault that they all thought with their dicks. This wasn’t right. You deserved better.

“So what do we do now?” whines Johnny. He notices the way you laugh with the trio— you used to laugh like that at his jokes.

“I honestly don’t know,” mumbles out Gaz. The four sit in silence through dinner.

As Soap finishes his last bite, he catches you and Russ getting up from y’all’s table with Russ actually grabbing your plate for you. Soap felt his eye twitch. As you two walk past the 141, lost in conversation, Johnny speaks up, hoping just a moment of your time.

He calls out your name. You turn, confused to hear your name. When you made eye contact with Soap, your smile falls.

“Yes, Sergeant?” you ask. You politely greet the other three. Keegan is right by your side, staring down the 141.

“Sergeant? Who’s that? It’s your Johnny-boy,” Soap quips.

“Do you need something?” You’re clearly not impressed.

This isn’t going how Johnny wanted at all. He smacks Price on his back and starts again. “The guys and I have some ice cream bars hidden in Price’s office. Come join us. You know, for team bonding and all that.”

Johnny sees something flash across your eyes. Was it… joy? However, it disappears as fast as it appeared.

“I think that’s inappropriate especially since I’m not an official member of the team and I would hate to impose,” you start. You glance at Keegan and shoot him a small smile. “Besides Kea— Sergeant Russ and I are going into town right now for dessert. So maybe another time,” you inform. You begin to turn, leaving the 141 to their ice creams when…

“Mind a third?” Soap blurts out. You turn around, shock all over your face. You look at him mouth gaping, unsure what to say. Johnny feels his face burn as it’s apparent you do mind a third but don’t know how to say it. Damn him and his big mouth.

Thankfully Keagan lends a helping hand. “Sorry man. I got shit in the back of my car and only got space for one person. But we’ll bring you something back.”

And with that Keagan whisks you away from the 141 nor brings the downtrodden Scotsman something back.

Word Count: 947

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dreamtofus · 5 hours ago

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141 x POC!GN Intelligence Operative - Not Your Savior Author's Notes: This was supposed to be short but I just kept writing. Also thanks to @wraithdance for helping me with this. Not very angsty in my opinion Warnings: MDNI, Angst?, Microaggressions/Racism

Johnny is a lover at heart. Sure he may be in the military, but how couldn't he? The world has always been kind to him. The least he can do is be kind to others.

Even if it's Americans who are trying to take the love of his life.

“Sweetheart, aren’t you gonna eat?” Johnny was going to gag. He should be focusing on his own work, but couldn't help eavesdrop on yours and Russ' conversation.

“Sergeant Russ, what have I told you about calling me sweetheart?”

“And what have I told you about calling me Sergeant Russ… sweetheart?” Silence followed before laughter came. Johnny hated it.

In another life, maybe him and Russ could have been friends. But as of right now, Johnny just wanted to punch his stupid face. Because how fucking dare he get close to you. How dare he love on you when Johnny couldn't or at least shouldn't.

“I have to finish a few more things before I can eat.” Johnny could hear the distinct sound of your fingers tapping on your keyboard. He hears that more than your voice these days.

“You know you can eat whenever you want, whether your work is done or not.” Your fingers stopped tapping. “You know that, right?”

Silence.

“Keegan, c-can you please leave?” Johnny was taken aback. He has never heard your voice break before.

Did Keegan touch a nerve? Did you really think you didn’t deserve to eat?

Now looking back at it, Johnny didn’t see you much in the dining hall these days. You normally sat with the 141 but after walking in the rain, you started to eat in your office. Or at least, he assumed you ate lunch in your office.

“Only if you come with me to get lunch.”

“Sergeant Russ, I already—“

“No.”

“No?”

“Yeah, no.” Johnny could hear some heavy footsteps. “Get up and let’s go.” The 141 sergeant distinctly heard the sound of your chair moving.

“Keegan, let me go, you can’t just—“

“Stop fighting me and let’s go!”

Even if Keegan has a point here, that doesn't mean he can just man-handle you. He shot out of his seat and rushed towards your office. However, before he could step inside, Keegan started to speak again in a much softer voice.

“I don’t know what these fucking Brits told you but you deserve to be here.“ Johnny heard you take a deep breath. “They might not care about you, but I do, so please let’s just—“

“Keegan, respectfully, fuck off.” You cut him off. “You‘ll never get it, okay? You’re a white man. You've never needed to prove yourself. So don’t come in here on your high horse and try to be my hero. I don’t need saving, I just need teammates who’ll let me do my job.“

Johnny could hear you breathing heavily, but he couldn't understand why you were so worked up? Keegan was just trying to look out for you... what's so wrong with that? Also what do you mean he didn't have to work hard? Johnny had to work hard and he's a white man.

Johnny tries to peer inside your office but had to quickly pull back as Keegan walks out. His eyes followed the American out.

“Sergeant MacTavish, do you need something?” Johnny jumps a bit after hearing your voice. He couldn't help but stare at you. It's been awhile since he's had you so close. Maybe this was his chance to show you he still cares.

"Y-y-ou should eat," he stutters out. Your eyes widen and you ask him to repeat himself. So he does. Johnny explains that despite Russ getting on his nerves, he's right. You should eat. And that you also should have been a little nicer to the guy, he was just looking out for you.

You weren't sure whether to scream or fight Johnny right now. Instead, like you always have, you take a deep breath and just leave. You didn’t have time for this anymore. You hear Johnny call out your name, but you ignore him. You just shut your door. Maybe this time, they’ll let you work.

An hour goes by and to your joy, no one bothers you. A small part of you hoped Johnny would come in and ask more questions, but you quickly pushed it down. He hasn’t cared about you in over four months, why would he suddenly care now? Now with that report done, you rush to the restroom.

As you walk back to your office, you fight the urge to look into the temporary office of the allied task force. They were an… interesting trio but you honestly didn’t want to entertain them. You were not going to make that mistake twice.

You swing your office door open and stop in your tracks. Sitting on your desk was a plastic bag with take-away boxes clearly in it. You slowly approached it and grab the note stapled on the bag.

It read: eat it now or later, totally up to you. The boxes are safe for the microwave.

Sorry, your teammate, Keegan.

You really couldn't believe it. You pointed out this man's privilege and told him to go fuck himself. Any one else would have had a fit and probably reported you, but instead he bought you lunch and apologized.

This had to be a trick… right? No one is that mature. You grabbed the bags and marched to the makeshift office.

And as you fly past a certain Scotsman's office, Johnny couldn't help but peak outside his door. For a moment, he was ecstatic to see a bag of food in your hands. But when he realized you were headed towards the new guys office, he couldn't help but feel nervous. What were you going to do?

"Sergeant Russ?" Johnny floats close to make sure everything goes well.

"Everything okay, sweetheart?"

"What's this?" Johnny connects the dots and realizes that Russ must have bought you food. Fuck. Why didn't he think of that?

"Lunch... or dinner. Up to you."

Your scoff rings out the door. "Why?"

Johnny hears Russ take a deep breath. He's probably annoyed. Now Russ is going to lash out when this could have all been avoided if you just had accepted his --

"Because you were right." Johnny hears a chair scrapping the floor before Russ continues. "I won't ever get what it's like to be you. And I can say all that I want but it won't change the fact that the rules are different for you and I."

"Keegan, I--"

"Please let me finish here." A heavy silence fills the air before Keegan continues. "But that doesn't mean I don't want to try to help you. And no, that doesn't mean I'm going to try to save you, because I know you can do that yourself. You've been doing that. Just... just let me help my teammate in any way I can." Johnny hears a few heavy steps. "Is that okay with you sweetheart?"

Johnny couldn't understand what just happened. Keegan was just trying to be nice and you get annoyed. Keegan leaves, buys you lunch, and then apologizes. What was going on here? Did Johnny miss something here?

He must have, because he couldn't understand why you would just say,

"Well, Keegan, help a teammate out then. I'm feeling like an early dinner tonight."

Word Count: 1231

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dreamtofus · 6 hours ago

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On Merit

exhusband!price x f!reader

cw: house fire and the aftermath of it. reader and john have kids. reader is implied to be an atheist. unedited because i don't want to look it over again. idk what this is and it's not going anywhere i just needed some comfort.

"i just thank god that the kids are okay."

an in-law of some fashion. a pesky one, perhaps an aunt. usually, you can remember her name by some clever rhyme you'd made up the day you'd gotten married, but today both the name and the rhyme escape you.

"yeah, me too," you mutter. it's not that you don't mean it, but you've repeated the line so many times today it feels hollow and you can't muster the energy necessary to sell it, especially when the mention of your kids has your head on a swivel, making sure they're still corralled off by the picnic table. they are, of course - haven't moved since you'd last sought them out in a panic all of thirty seconds ago. your mother hovers over them, her hands stroking their hair, just as insistent and scared as your own which hang uselessly at your sides. you want to go to them, but the team of volunteer construction workers who have manifested from the aether need guidance on which parts of the house may contain salvageable heirlooms or sentimental storage. they've been dipping in and out of the wreckage all morning, confused worker bees pulling honey from the hive. a small collection of brightly colored totes decorates your lawn, fluorescent greens and reds standing out amongst the charred grass where more community and family members pick them apart, show you waterlogged decorations from a new years party four years ago and pester you to see if you want to bother keeping them. if you say no, they toss the waste into a large construction bag. mildly, it bothers you that they don't just throw them back in the house. clean up has to start somewhere, you suppose.

they found the majority of your pictures, waterlogged but whole. a gaggle of elderly women sit at picnic tables which weren't on your lawn this morning, pressing each photo between layers of shop rags. you want to bake them a cake, wonder if they'll accept a delivery pizza. wonder if you're lucky enough that your wallet is still in your car.

"only home twenty minutes… when i think what could have happened…" you close your eyes against the visions it invokes, tears collecting in your lashes. auntie balks when she notices, as if surprised her words could affect you. she pats your arm awkwardly. "well, everything happens for a reason. it's lucky you got home when you did."

it's the same line you've heard all morning, the same one you yourself had spouted to your mother much earlier when you'd admitted your kids had been home alone most the night. there was nothing wrong with that, your oldest - fifteen - plenty capable of making sure her younger sister ate and got to bed on time. which she'd done, both girls sleeping like logs when you'd gotten home. you don't want to think about what could have happened if you'd been any later, if one more patient had taken a turn, and all the words of comfort have been the same - thank god that wasn't the case. they mean well but the truth is you don't really believe in that kind of stuff so it's hard to get past the what ifs. you let it wash over you, like the runoff still flowing down the backslope of the lawn. ash and glass clouds the brook back there, a fine waiting to happen, probably. add it to the list of growing expenses your mind is too clouded to tally up right now.

smoke still wafts from the house - what remains of it. thin tendrils of ink leaking from the empty windows, their frames warped from the sagging weight of the structure and wreathed in melted plastic. john had insisted on the most expensive brand he could find, adamant that they were the most secure. but fire doesn't care much about double locks or casement, and it had rained little crystals of tempered glass down on you anyway. it crunches like gravel under aunties shoes as she drifts away from you now, neither of you able to offer the other the kind of comfort you each need. most of these people, they've shown up to make themselves feel better, to tell everyone how they'd helped the poor single mother in her time of need. but you don't act the part of the distraught, needy damsel and it's left a lot of them off-kilter, approaching you like a ticking bomb, a presumed-buried fuel source hidden under the rubble, waiting to catch heat. perhaps you are.

>>On my way.

you don't need to check your phone to verify the text because it's been burned into your retinas by now but you do anyway, just to be sure. just to do the mental math of how long ago it had been received. seven hours. wherever he'd been when he pinged your phone at two in the morning, when the firefighters had still been lingering, it must have been far. john and you may have had your differences over the years, but he had never and would never be the type to let you face a crisis alone. even now you can't help but reflect on the depth of his devotion, the implication that he'd been on a mission which he'd dropped to be with you even after learning his daughters were okay not lost on you. it's another mental image you have to fight off, the father of your children battle worn and weary when he checks his burner to find an update from kate. he hadn't bothered to relay his reply through her, had texted you directly because he still had your number memorized after all these years. it has you shaking your head, waspish when the volunteers bring you a bin of old gaming consoles, filled with water because the stupid plastic guitar controller was too tall to properly fashion the cover. you've no idea why it makes you angry, but you latch onto it with claws and teeth anyway because being mad at john is much safer than lingering on -.

well, lingering on.

the construction crew tells you the kitchen won't collapse on you if you want to go in through the window there. you don't, but it gives you something to do, and you only realize once you're already in that it was perhaps the worst room to have chosen.

debris carpets the floor at least two inches thick. you have a fleeting, wild notion to go swap your sneakers for boots before you remember, thoughts immediately flickering to wonder how long it will take for that instinct to die off. what strikes you first is how small the room seems with the roof sagging slightly and floor raised by detritus. soot stained and dark, it swallows the ample sunlight which streams through the empty window within inches, the further corners of the kitchen too dark to make out properly. it doesn't feel like your home, casts a certain sense of voyeurism over the growing feeling of loss. your kitchen, the life center of your home, nothing but charred ribs now.

the crew offers you a worn baseball cap and a pair of gloves when they see you flinch under the steady drip of water. you don't bat an eye as you pull them on, too focused on where you want to begin and if you'll get sepsis for your troubles.

you can't open the fridge because it's melted too much but the cabinets are all mostly functional, if unrecognizable. you don't dare open the higher ones because the way they hang off-kilter makes you nervous but the lower ones housed the bake ware anyway, the morbid curiosity to see if your pyrex finally shattered too hard to resist.

turns out those things really can take the heat.

it's hard to stop once you've started, almost cathartic - a checklist of all the items you've forgotten you owned being crossed out as you confirm you no longer have them. it's an odd sort of soothing, a finger in a bullet hole to stem the blood loss. it will be nice not to have to wonder if anything could have been salvageable when you remember them later.

"is my pie still in the oven?"

you don't bother turning, your eldest's blithe sense of humor about the whole affair recognizable even without looking. "you shouldn't be here," you remind her, opening up a deep drawer to find a collection of snack sized crisp bags floating in dirty water. if you weren't so agitated, it would make you laugh, the way they bob like apples, inviting you to try your luck.

"neither should you," she counters. "is my pie still in the oven? i worked so hard on it."

"what pie?" you ask, carefully closing the drawer, as if spilling more water on the floor could actually matter.

"i made a pie last night! it turned out pretty good, i think. was excited to have you try it."

you blink, finally turning to face her. "you made a pie?"

she nods, still oddly cheerful. she has been all day, a solid rock you're refusing to lean on because you want her to know she can cry, that she doesn't need to do this. "yeah, pumpkin. our fav," she reminds you.

you hide the sudden surge of tears by turning away from her and carefully opening the oven. the glass has been blown, shards thumping to the soggy floor as the door tilts. you can't help but laugh at what you find inside, the double tins still fully functional, a deep dish pie standing tall and proud in their confines. it resembles a charred souffle more than a pie when you pull it out, the top puffed up and blackened but refusing to sink into the soaked crust. a perfect slice has been cut from it already, the pie likely having been put back just to keep it warm a little longer. waiting on you. out of instinct, you check to make sure the oven had been switched off though the investigator already said everything was caused by the line outside.

thankfully your daughter doesn't catch your doubt, too busy fawning over how perversely good her pie still looks. "i'm so proud of it," she declares, taking the dish from you.

you can't help but laugh. "you should offer it to the ladies sorting the pictures out there, in thanks."

"oh my god, you're right!" she cheers, and then nearly throws her precious pie down the bank when she turns away. "dad!" she shrieks, deciding to unload it on the window sill instead. like a dark reimagining of vintage americana.

john's by her side in a heartbeat, pulling her to him with a strong arm. in his other he still holds your youngest because that's what he's used to doing, nevermind the fact that she's twelve now. you don't think you've ever seen him so visibly shaken, mustache twitching as he holds your daughters close. he never bothered to change out of his field gear - vest stripped, but empty holsters still hanging from his stained cargos because those require a bit more care, fine motor control he probably couldn't manage. his hands are heavy on the crowns of your daughters heads, whatever words he whispers to them buried there too. you watch them with your heart in your throat, your agitation returning at the sight of him, the urge to chew your nails completely off only cowed by the appearance of soot on your gloves and the sweet smell of chemically loaded water and smoke which hangs around you like perfume. you'll have to take a bite out of him instead, an instinct that only grows when he spots you in the kitchen, anger clouding the fear in his gaze.

"sweetheart, get out of there."

you ignore him. "where were you?"

john doesn't even blink, evidently having been expecting this reaction. he should have, you remember. the same fight as always. "i was on miss -."

"i don't care." you turn back toward the room, as if to storm away, but a sink hole lays before you and despite everything, you still have enough sense about you to stay put.

it's the only opportunity he needs, john's heavy boots thudding behind you as he pulls himself up through the window. "honey, come here," he says, but he doesn't give you the chance, coming up behind you to pull you around.

you're folded in his arms before you can even pitch a fit about it, the low stream of anger you're spewing swallowed up somewhere in the stiff folds of his button up. you don't realize your breaths are coming in heaving gasps until his arms are shaking with it, his bicep swelling in your periphery just to drop suddenly out of your field of view every time you gasp for breath. john doesn't say much - or maybe he says too much, voice a steady low hum you feel in his chest more than you register in your ear. there's no helping the way you cling to him, anger dissipating as quickly as it built. john's solid and warm against you, just as soft for you as he's always been. he smells like sweat and gunpowder, the subtle scent of the expensive cigars he never finishes. it's a smell you miss always, but especially today, when the cloying scent of smoke and pfas water have felt near to suffocating you all morning.

john waits until your anger has been guttered before guiding you outside, his palm heavy on your back. he's subtle about the way he pulls another man's cap off your head, distracting you with questions about what happened, and, why is his aunt here. you pretend not to notice, stuck between an odd sense of endearment you really don't have time for and an urge to encourage him you decide to reanalyze when you're not homeless and desperate for comfort in whatever form it comes.

"the wind - last night. inspector says the tree out front must've dropped a limb on the line to the house."

"told you to let me cut it down," john mutters and you roll your eyes at him, too tired to fight now that he's calmed you down once already.

"shut up, you can blame me for this later -."

"honey, that's not -."

"look at this. you won't believe this. that line - when it split - it fucking wrapped itself around the wood stove exhaust. like, five times! look!" he's guided you back to the front of the house by now and you drag him to the freak display, the cable indeed having somehow managed to fasten itself to the exhaust while it was hissing and spitting, dangling from your home. john frowns at it, stroking his mustache in thought. "freak fucking accident," you continue, "like, what are the odds of that?"

john doesn't have an answer. "you were home?"

your breath catches when you reply, voice a low croak. john's hand is on your back in a second, soothing broad circles across your tense shoulders. "only just. the girls were asleep. i called up to them to get out of the house but i tried to put the fire out first. grabbed the hose. thank god i realized it was electrical before i ..." you babble on, for the first time able to lay your anxieties at someone else's feet. "when i went back inside, the girls were still upstairs i -." you cut yourself off, sobbing as you remember storming into your eldest's just in time to see the window shatter across her bed. you'd gotten everyone out in time but it was so close and you were so scared and it was just you and -.

"it's okay, sweetheart," john murmurs, pulling you close again. his next words are low, close to your ear. just for you "you did such a good job, mama. so proud of you."

time distorts a little after that. exhaustion creeps up on you, sinks its hooks in when you let it. john takes over, directing the crews with practiced ease and shaking hands in gratitude everywhere he goes. he even manages to keep his aunt away from you, though you spot her circling like a vulture now that she sees your walls have weakened.

you sit with the girls, looking over the salvaged goods with a sort of detached irreverence. it's strange, the anxiety of knowing you have nothing left to your name combined with the way you simply don't want to keep any of the items they bring for your inspection. the photos survived, the rest is replaceable.

but then john himself is bringing a soggy box over, only one corner of the white cardboard singed. you leap when to your feet when you recognize the careful script of the logo on the top, a local formal shop.

"no way," you breathe as you rip the display box from his hands, turning until you can see for yourself that the plastic casing hasn't melted, that your wedding dress is still mostly white and soot-free.

"didn't know you kept this," john mutters but you're barely listening, ripping the box open like a kid at christmas. your mom is there suddenly, helping you to keep the dress off the ground as you unfold it to check for charring, and then the gaggle of biddies are there too, laying out construction bags on the lawn for you to drape it across to keep it clean. the strangest bridal party ever assembled.

you have high hopes until you get it turned over, the train discolored and sodden from where all the water had pooled in the box. tears come unbidden to your eyes as you mourn the loss of your beautiful dress - the one memento you hadn't been able to bear parting with after the divorce. someone's hands are on you, perhaps your moms, gentle and hesitant. whoever it is they shush your tears as you sob about it not being fair, how you just want it all back.

you're not sure which you mean.

but the hands are heavier on you now, more confident. it's not your mother's voice in your ear, quiet shushing turning to gravelly words. oh, honey, you never lost it. it's okay, we'll get it all back.

i'll get you a new one.

divider by @/rookthornesartistry

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

Note

I was wondering if you were writing your crime wife thought as a full story/longer drabble? If not may I request her meeting Ghost???? Thank you!!!

- 🪼

i have written some thoughts on this, and half of a chapter, but it's been so long since i've written a series. i'm not sure how i feel about it tbh. i'm pretty self conscious. i'll mention here and in the warnings that reader is afab and she also doesn't have a name, but she does go by a nickname. friend of mine helped me to decide on the nickname and where it came from so shoutout to them otherwise it would have ended up being something about sharks lmao

but plz feel free to send reqs for this little idea or any others! ♡

cw ; afab!reader, brief mentions of abuse, reader has severe anxiety and a stutter, brief mention of blood in a metaphor, reader does not have a name but she does go by a nickname, i tried to keep most other descriptions of reader pretty vague so everything else is up for interpretation, she and ghost are hella awkward

The breeze was a stranger to you, an unknown feeling against your skin as you stepped out into the spring sun. Your dress fluttered like the wings of the birds that flew about around you, dancing along the thralls of freedom, something you had longed to taste.

How long has it been now? How long have you been stuck here in this prison, the walls of your cell slowly closing in on you day by day? Time was hardly something you understood anymore. What was the point in keeping up?

Your husband had taken his leave earlier in the morning. You were thankful that he left you be, allowing you to stay consumed by your dreams. However, you could hardly call a void opening up underneath your feet and swallowing you whole a dream.

But nightmares were safer than the gaze and touch of your oh-so-loving husband.

You had the house to yourself, for the most part. You knew somehow, someway, your husband still had eyes on you. You were unsure how, but he always managed to know every little thing you were doing from what books you read to what time you decided to crawl into bed. Even if he was miles away from home, he knew every detail about your life. Your own personal dictator.

The thought made your temples pulsate, a headache beginning to form when you had barely stepped outside.

You wouldn’t let your husband get in the way of your one chance at solace. He wasn’t here to hound you about how disheveled your hair looked when the wind had torn through it, pushing it to and fro. He wasn’t here to decide what your dinner for the night would be. He wasn’t here to put his hands on you, shoving you back into the wall as he blamed you for every little wrong thing that happened in his life. He wasn’t here to blame you for his own mistakes.

So you put on a dress you had kept hidden in the back of your closet, a white sundress with blue lemon tree accents and puffy sleeves. The waist was cinched, revealing your curves, and the square neckline allowed the sun to kiss the exposed skin of your neck and shoulders. The dress cascaded down to the middle of your shins, pooling out around you as you sat amongst the blanket you brought with you to the garden.

You were surrounded by all of your favorite things: the sun, flowers, and butterflies that danced atop the curves of the leaves on the bushes you had spent years mothering.

This was your safe haven, your joy. The only happiness you felt you had left.

Soon your husband would return, and you’d have to retreat back into the warzone that was your own home. You’d be tucked back into your tower, unable to see the sun, unable to see the flowers you’d spent so long taking care of, flowers you’d watched bloom with your own eyes all those summers ago when love didn’t take the form of a wild bull. Its horns had ripped flesh from bone, puncturing what was left of your heart and letting you slowly bleed out.

Nausea began to settle deep in the pit of your stomach.

Your hands reached for one of the many books you had brought out, landing on The Picture of Dorian Grey, one you had already read a thousand times.

You open to the first page, your eyes gravitating to the words as if it were second nature. You read sentences, and paragraphs, ahead in your mind, the book memorized from front to back, engraved in the crevices of your mind.

And yet you still found yourself smelling the roses and lilacs of Basil Howard’s studio as he listened to Lord Henry boast about his art, and how he explained the beauty of the young lad Dorian Grey.

“You might see nothing in him. I see everything in him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of certain colours…” You read the lines aloud, word for word, your voice growing soft as you reach the end.

“...That is all.”

Snap.

Your eyes fly up to the bush that sits to your right. Over the years your ears had grown sensitive to the sounds around you, always listening for the footsteps of your husband, listening for the clack of the bulls' hooves as he charged towards your cell.

But you were met with a silence that sucked the oxygen from your lungs. You could have looked away. There was nothing there. Nothing that you could see at least. So it was safe, right?

So you blinked back the fear in your eyes, pushing it aside and turning your attention back to the book in your lap. However, it was hard to concentrate on the words now, the syllables jumbled into one chaotic mess, a tornado of letters that seemed incomprehensible. Your ears felt full of water. Your esophagus became tight, an unseen force pushing you under the waves of an ocean you’ve only ever seen in your nightmares.

You were being consumed by the fear that your husband had instilled into you, the vexed look in his eyes flashing behind your own. However, fright molded you into an ignorant woman, that very ignorance keeping you from seeing the brawn of a man standing from behind the very bush you had been wary of. He was slow, calculating, giving you plenty of time to react, and yet you didn’t.

You were lost at sea, plunged under the waves by the anxiety that had nestled its way into your life, so graciously placed there by the so-called “love of your life”.

The leaves rustled, and you blinked: once, twice, then three times.

You were intelligent. This was one of the few words of affirmation you had given yourself over the years, one of the few things you actually believed.

And yet in this moment, you couldn’t have felt any more stupid. Thinking wasn’t an option when his clouded, amber eyes locked with yours. His size was something you should have accounted for when your book fell out of your grip and you lept from the blanket. You thought you’d be fast.

But he was much faster.

His iron grip was on you before you could even take a step towards the house. His massive, gloved hand practically consumed your bicep. Out of instinct, you kept quiet. You blame your silence on your husband. The only sound you made was a quiet gasp as the stranger tugged you towards him, forcing you to face him.

Those chocolate eyes were so much brighter up close, the color reminding you of the outer wing pattern of an Atlas Moth. They shined in the afternoon sun, glowing in a way that had you enamored despite the pure horror that circulated through you. The rest of his face was obscured by a mask with a skull painted on it. The skin around his eyes was painted with black paint that seemed applied in a rushed or lazy manner, and you could see beads of sweat dripping down through the pigment.

Your eyes were wide, you were sure, a deer in headlights. Yet you didn’t resist, didn’t tug against the hold he had on you. After all, obedience was all you had ever known.

“Shh shh…husband doesn’t need t’know I’m ‘ere. Be quiet f’me, yeah?”

You simply watched the way his mask crinkled where his lips would be. His voice was a deep timbre, a sound most would find intimidating and yet you found it…charming. The way he spoke was hardly threatening, and over time his grip on your arms seemed to loosen as well.

“Well?”

Your eyes darted back up to his, lips parting to speak, but words were never your strong suit. So you instead opted to nod, bobbing your head up and down slowly, noting the way he studied your movements so closely.

And as quickly as his touch was there, it was gone, one hand falling to his side while the other reached up to rub across his face and down his chin.

“Bloody hell…” he whispered, your eyes still tracking his movements. After all, this was your home, your garden, and this complete stranger was just…standing here, speaking to you so casually, even making demands of you.

Not that you’d have told your husband anyway.

You watched his irises flick from the flowers of your garden to the windows of your house that sat behind you and then back down to you. You stood on the brink of being consumed by the stillness of the air, the situation making you fidget your fingers, index fingers intertwining with one another as your hands crossed.

It was impossible to read him, his body language relaxed and yet stiff all at once. You couldn’t tell whether he was scrutinizing you or simply just had a staring problem, maybe even both. The man simply towered over you, staring down at you with a look you couldn’t decipher even as he spoke.

“Husband did say ya were a quiet one. Although most people would scream if they were grabbed by a stranger.”

His statement was blunt, tone flat. Perhaps you had a staring problem as well, focus cast on the look in his eyes, and the way the sun made the pools of amber sparkle. You didn’t even notice the way your lips parted or the scratchy voice that came out right after.

“Just…just wasn’t expecting it was all.”

You were met with silence, the quiet air between you both making your skin crawl with an uneasy feeling, fingers wrapping around one another tighter.

“You’re one of the men from…across the street, right?” You finally blinked, his gaze becoming too much and you looked away, deciding that the ground was much more interesting now. He shifted his stance, arms crossing over his chest. His biceps bulged out a bit, the sleeves of his shirt tightening around the muscles.

“I am.”

You felt an odd sense of satisfaction knowing that someone else out there was just as bad at conversation as you were. The thought almost made your lips twitch into a smile, but you stopped it before it grew any wider.

The breeze picked up again, cutting through the stillness in the Spring air. Your hair swayed behind you, dress fanning out even as you pressed your palms down against your thighs to keep it from flying upwards. The longer you stood there in the quiet, the longer that familiar blade of anxiety cut through your sternum and dug deep into your chest. You felt sick.

His boots drug across the dirt when he uncrossed his arms, “S’pose I should ask your name?”

“It’s…um…” You stuttered out, eyes flitting from the ground, up to him, then back down. Why was talking such an impossible task, something so menial?

“Make it easier if I told ya mine first?” Your hand came up, pushing a stray piece of hair behind your ear while you nodded, looking up at him from under your lashes just the tiniest bit.

“Ghost.”

“Ghost?”

Even through the mask, you could see the way his eyebrow rose in a quizzical manner underneath.

“Got a problem with it?” You thought perhaps this was his way of sounding sarcastic. You let out a faint huff and shook your head in response.

“Good. Your turn then.”

You uttered your name to him, quiet, yet loud enough for him and the ensemble of flowers and butterflies around you to hear.

“But…most people call me Scarlet.”

There it was again—that same curious glint in his eyes from before when you questioned his own name.

“It’s a butterfly,” and as you spoke you turned. Distantly, you could hear him take a step towards you. However, you simply bent over, grabbing a hold of a book that sat on top of a larger stack of books. When you faced him again, you were already opening it to a page that was familiar to you. Of course, you had turned to this specific page numerous times before.

There was a large picture at the top of the left page with a black butterfly sitting front and center, and a few paragraphs of information listed underneath. Closest to the body and on the edges of the hindwings were sections of scarlet. You point to the image, his attention moving from you to the book.

“They’re called Scarlet Mormons. I’ve always…liked butterflies and moths, but they’re my favorite…” Your cheeks grow hot with embarrassment as you explain your favoritism for the species. In your mind, you sound like a child, so any scrutiny he decides to throw at you, you feel you deserve. And as he opens his mouth, you prepare yourself for the worst.

“They’re beautiful.”

Your apprehension becomes a distant memory at the sound of his voice and the words that fall from his lips, a word that sounds taboo coming from a sinister-looking man like him. Is a man like Ghost allowed to say such a word? Does he even know what it means?

You don’t take him for an idiot. Of course, he knows what it means, but it doesn’t stop your heart from pounding against your chest cavity, begging to burst from the space between your ribs.

“Why are you here…Ghost?” The question comes out hesitantly as you seek a change in subject. You don’t notice the way his eyes flick to your lips when you enunciate the syllables of his callsign, the way he tracks your hands when you close the book and press it to your chest.

When you do finally look back towards him, you can see him pondering something. The gears in his mind are working double time, and you don’t think you’ll even get a proper response. There’s a hundred possibilities as to why he’s here. You think maybe he works for your husband, cozying up to you to earn your trust and tell your husband all of your whereabouts and what you do while he’s gone. Perhaps he is an enemy of your husbands and you’ve made a terrible mistake, your ignorance once again clouding your judgment.

That same fissure begins to open up below you, threatening to pull you under. You’ll be blamed, and this time the mistake will be your fault. Your husband will take the last bits of happiness you have: your garden, books, the sunlight.

And it’s like Ghost sees this void underneath you, the foreboding tendrils of your husband dragging you into the furthest depths of Hell when he whispers out, “Think you’ve been pulled into this war enough. That’s a secret for another time.”

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

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november 1 mood

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

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Rediscovered | CBF! 09’ Ghost x/& Reader

Day 26: Reconnecting w/ 09’ Simon “Ghost” Riley

Summary: After meeting in elementary school, you and Simon hit it off, becoming best friends before miscommunications leads you two to lose contact for years, before meeting again at an airport.

Word Count: ~ 1.9k

Warnings: allusions to an abusive dad (simon’s), period blood, partial nudity?? (not sexual at all), mentions of family death

A/N: ok I actually really like this one, it can be read as either platonic or romantic, and I might expand on it later when I’m not so flooded (I have 9000 wips😭), hope you enjoy<3

Requests are open!

It had all started one morning, in an old public school. The first day of 2nd grade.

You’d sat down near the middle, not wanting the attention of being in the front or back, preferring to be farthest from the teacher. He’d sat down in the back, on the desk behind you.

The teacher, an older woman with frizzy, short hair and thick bangs, had passed out pieces of paper with little plastic bowls of macaroni and instructed each of you to take out your glue bottle and stick the macaroni pieces down to make the shape of an apple. He hadn’t brought anything to class, mumbling something about ‘forgetting’ his backpack before thanking you when you decided to share.

You remembered seeing the splotchy bruises on his skin, on his too-skinny knees, and wondering where they were from. His blonde, greasy hair, almost looked brown. He had blonde eyelashes, that was what you remembered the most.

You’d knocked your bowl of macaroni off your desk, and everyone had turned their heads to you, the chatting of other children stopping as some giggled. He watched as your ears turned red from embarrassment, and you got up, kneeling on the floor to pick up each and every piece, one by one. He’d gotten up too, deciding that he would make whatever was between you two even by helping.

“I’m (Y/N),”

You’d murmured, offering a little strained, nervous smile. He’d glanced up at you, and nodded, swallowing as his Adam’s Apple bobbed.

“Simon.”

He whispered back. You had smiled a bit at that, and he’d assumed you were just mentally laughing at him, until you’d whispered something to him about having an old dog named Simon, one of those crusty white mutts that would bark at everything, could barely see, and would hump everyone’s legs.

He’d snorted at that.

The other kids had moved their focus back onto their crafts by then, and you’d written your address on the back of an index card, passing it to him, whispering for him to come visit on Saturday afternoon, that he could play games with you and your neighborhood friends.

He’d come and gotten to know all of them. Some of the only childhood friends he’d had, considering the people who lived in his neighborhood didn’t have any kids, or not good ones to hang around with unless you were looking to get addicted to something, anyway.

He’d finally met your parents, being welcomed in, your mother taking some of his torn jeans and pants to stitch up for him, giving him food to take home, your father helping with homework after school, teaching him how to fix things, helping teach him woodwork and how a man should act, caring for his family, how to be respectful to women. He started getting invited to Thanksgiving, essentially staying at your house every day after school to escape his actual dad waiting at home.

He’d been there when you’d first gotten your period, waking up to your hushed panicked whispers to yourself, walking over only to cover his eyes as he tried to erase the sight of your pants and underwear, both stained with blood, pulled down. You held a tampon in one hand and squealed as you saw him.

“Hey, it’s just me—“

“Oh god, Simon, I don’t know what to do—my mom only uses tampons and I don’t want that inside of me-!”

“Just..uh…shove toilet paper in your underwear.”

“No! I need pads, shit-shit-shit, we don’t have any…”

He’d seen the tears welling in your eyes as he peeked out from his hands, keeping his eyes strictly on your face. He knew what he had to do, even as his cheeks turned bright red.

“I could, I dunno, go buy some? There’s that little shop like five minutes away?”

“Oh, thank god, there’s twenty bucks under my plant on my dresser, you can use that. Thank you, Si.”

He’d run to the little shop, bought the pads using the twenty bucks, despite the weird looks the cashier and men in the store had given him, and run straight back, handing you the pad and reading the instructions from the back of the box to try and help you figure it out together with him.

He’d been there for your first boyfriend, some guy with no real personality outside of being tall and good at basketball, but you’d both broken up abruptly because he’d simply gotten bored of you. He’d comforted you then, and you’d comforted him after his first girlfriend cheated on him.

High school had come. He survived the first two years only because you helped him through it, basically tutoring him through all of Geometry and the advanced classes he somehow tested into, and he’d taken you to all the fast food restaurants you’d craved in the middle of the night in exchange. He dropped out Junior year, and because of being held back for ‘disruptive behavior’ in his elementary school, he was already 18.

He didn’t know how to drop the bombshell that he was going to the military, having already applied, and been accepted, he was expected to report in only a day.

So he wrote a letter, saying everything about how he would miss you, and that he’d bring you home all sorts of trinkets, and that you’d both be best friends forever, even when he went into the military and escaped his father for good. He’d thanked you for everything, saying he’d see you again soon, and he’d visit again as soon as possible.

Except that, between all the missions, a few injuries that hospitalized him, and then the training he had to undergo to be put back in his Task Force, and everything he witnessed, it was a couple of years until he finally went back.

But when he did go back, getting off of the flight, speeding the entire way to your house, hopping out, he knocked on the door, newly painted with the yard trimmed nearly, a few different decorations and flowers in place now, it was a stranger who opened the door. A stranger said that he didn’t know who Simon was looking for and that he’d owned this house for a good four years now.

Simon had assumed you’d moved on. Gone on for better things than him. Little did he know, his father had found the letter in the mailbox, mailed to go to your house, since Simon knew you might find it too soon if he put it right in your mailbox, and his father had opened it, and promptly thrown it in their fireplace, watching it burn to ash.

You didn’t know where your best friend had gone. He’d just…disappeared with no word, and after all of his family tragically died a year or two after, you’d gone to the funerals, and not seen a trace of him. Here you were now, standing and waiting for your flight back home from visiting some family that lived far away, messy bun holding your greasy hair up, eye bags prevalent as you hadn’t cared to put on makeup, wearing the most atrocious but comfortable outfit possible, and you saw it.

A pair of blue eyes that looked all too familiar.

He was with three other men, one looking old enough to be your father, with a gruff beard and weathered demeanor, another with a Mohawk, wearing a small grin as he nodded at something, the other silent and listening with a smile, and him.

He was wearing a cloth mask, the sort that had been mandated throughout countries not too long ago. It had a skull pattern, one you recognized from the countless nights his older brother, Tommy, had worn a skull mask and scared the wits out of both you and Simon. You still remembered his shrilly squeals of terror as he booked it, running for the hills.

“Simon?”

His head snapped in your direction so fast you thought he might have a whiplash injury. They all paused, a bit of surprise, and a hint of suspicion and mistrust in their expressions as they watched him yank his mask off, face one of shock, before he ran over to you.

You laughed in pure sleep-deprived shock, embracing him in a hug as he gave you a fat kiss on the cheek, he sighed.

“Thought I’d never see you again. By the time I went back, you were already gone. Guess you read the letter, huh?”

He felt a bit of embarrassment bubbling up at the memory of his teenage self crying while writing that letter, all of his angsty little thoughts spilling out into what he thought might be a final goodbye.

“What letter?”

You both looked up at each other confused, and it was his turn to laugh in disbelief.

“I, uh, made a letter. Tellin’ you I was going off to the military, that I’d be back. I thought I mailed it to you, must’ve forgotten through the nerves.”

The other men finally began approaching. They’d never seen their Ghost look so nervous before, going back to stuttering, rubbing the back of his neck, grinning nervously while looking at the floor.

“Ghost? Who’s this?”

The gruff man asked. You raised a brow.

“Ghost? Seriously?”

Simon huffed elbowing you in the side, watching you wince slightly. He forgot how strong he was, sometimes. Maybe it was because he was always surrounded by people who were just as large as he was, that he wasn’t used to being around civilians anymore.

“Ah, this is Captain MacTavish and Captain Price—“

“Christ’s sake, we’re off base, just tell the lass our names.”

He saw the way your grin widened at his Captain’s Scottish accent, meeting his gaze with a look of wonder.

“Right, John Price, John MacTavish, and that’s Gary.”

“What’s Gary’s special name?”

You watched as Simon’s lips twitched up a moment, before responding.

“Roach.”

You busted out laughing, and soon enough the older men were joining in too, while poor Gary just cringed and turned redder by the second.

“Gonna introduce me, Si?”

You finally asked once the laughing fit was over, and he nodded, throat suddenly drying up as he realized he didn’t know a proper title for you. Friend? Were you two even more than acquaintances after all these years? His brain seemed to decide for him, as he spoke.

“This is my best friend, (Y/N).”

The men raised brows at that, but Price only chuckled, jerking his head to the airport’s hallway.

“This has been a lovely reunion, but we need to find a place to sleep, best friend or not.”

He’d said, giving a smile that felt a bit passive-aggressive to Simon, considering how he was tired, hungry, and just wanted to rent a hotel room for the night already, and the words had tumbled out of your mouth before you’d thought it through.

“You could just stay with me. We’ve got plenty of catching up to do, anyway.”

You’d said, giving a pointed glance at Simon, who’d smirked ever so slightly.

“How about it, lads?”

MacTavish had asked, and after a collective nod from everyone, he sealed your fate with a simple sentence.

“Lead the way, then.”

You weren’t sure what you’d gotten yourself into.

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

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id love to be tagged if you continue:-) this was so good

Surprise Pt. 5 | Soap x Reader

Summary: The boys learn that they don’t know you as well as they thought they did, while you find some newfound ‘friends’ in an American and his unofficial boss in Urzikstan.

Word Count: ~ 4.6k

Warnings: Descriptions of death, knives, blood, guns, explosions, debris, gas, torture, kidnapping, shooting, choking, heavy topics, biting, it’s a lot yall

A/N: umm sorry ive been gone for a week here’s some food!! *runs away* this is a big switchup though from mainly 141 to Alex, Farah, and a few more pieces of reader’s backstory so lmk any thoughts or theories (yk I love them) hope you enjoy<3 (side quest: find how many characters you can recognize from cod!)

Requests are open!

Previous | Masterlist | Next

The first thing Captain John Price registered when he walked into the room, the rest of his Task Force following closely behind, was that they were in some deep shit. They’d just gotten back from a mission. The one they’d been called into during the volleyball game. It had been low stakes, but instead of going back to the apartment, they’d been told to get back to base as soon as possible.

Laswell was pacing back and forth, fidgeting, two things she never did unless everything was falling apart at the seams. The last time he’d seen her so worked up had been years ago. When she caught sight of him, there was no sigh of relief or relaxation, she breathed out four words.

”They got her, John.”

He tried not to let the tension in his body show, tried not to look just how internally panicked he was right now. Simon stiffened, hands balling into fists. Price knew it was a conscious effort to not lash out immediately.

”What.”

Ghosh ground out, eyes narrowed. Soap tried putting a hand on his shoulder, a hand that Simon only shoved off immediately. Laswell just shook her head, looking to be in shock as she only sat down at one of the chairs in the dimly lit room, pulling documents out from a drawer under the long table.

Price was the first to sit, followed by Gaz, then Soap, and finally, Simon who refused to relax, his leg bouncing impatiently under the table, hands on his knees.

Laswell opened one of the files, sliding it around to where they could see it. Lo and behold, it was a picture of you from a few years back, maybe when you’d been 14 or 15. You shouldn’t have been able to get in that early, it shouldn’t have even been possible. You wore a uniform, the file listing you by your first and last name, your callsign in the center. There was no official position or branch like there should’ve been.

“Wasp.”

Price stared at it for a few moments, reading whatever he could glean over in the file before glancing up at Laswell, who in turn pulled another file out. This one looked newer, the corners were not bent or warped yet. When she opened it, there was no picture on file. This time, it stated “Marines” as your branch. Your last name was listed as “Woods” instead of Riley.

To keep Simon from finding you on the database, most likely. Or someone else.

And the thing that caught his attention the most?

The “Captain” title right next to your first name.

”That’s nae possible.”

Soap said, jaw clenched as he glanced at Simon, the man refusing to meet his eye, glaring down at the files.

”It is,”

Laswell said, breathing out a shaky breath. Trying to calm herself, Price knew.

”They found her in a camp at 12, Frank Woods took her in, pulled some strings, and enrolled her early off record. He kept her mostly off base in a safe house until she turned 18.”

Gaz’s gaze was on Laswell now, narrowed, pinned on her. Interrogation was his specialty, after all.

”A camp?”

A nod.

”Essentially a POW camp, her relations to Ghost meant she was a valuable asset to bargain.”

Price didn’t need to glance over at Ghost to see the way he’d nearly stopped breathing, the shock being a common aspect among the group. Gaz let out a deep breath, hand going to hold the brim of his cap, his gloved finger running along the seam.

”Then how the bloody hell is she in high school?”

Simon asked, trying to reason with how this could’ve happened, how you could’ve lied to them, to him, for so long about everything and he’d never even caught on. It hadn’t been a volleyball camp keeping you from attending his mum’s funeral, it had been a POW camp, one you had been in because of him in the first place. And the new, somewhat stable foster home you’d been in? A safe house provided by your new foster parent, Frank Woods, an American Sergeant that Simon had heard whispers of.

He’d allegedly been a force to reckon with during the Korean and Vietnam wars, retired now and pushing 60 probably, but no less legendary by military standards.

”She’s 23, Lieutenant. It was a cover mission.”

Another surprise.

Another lie.

“Steamin’ Jesus…”

Soap muttered, the gleam in his eye dimming from what was most likely concern.

”It was an undercover mission, but with her gone, I don’t know how we’ll handle Nova…”

Laswell muttered to herself, catching herself just in time to shut her mouth then and there, probably realizing she’d already said too much, when Price stood up, staring her down.

”Nova? The hell is that?”

He asked sternly, and Laswell gathered the files in her hands, putting them neatly back into stacks, falling back into the controlled woman he usually saw her as.

”That’s classified, John.”

“Considering we’re closely involved with her, I don’t think it is, Kate.”

He saw the slight whiplash it gave her to call her by her first name, which made sense considering it was always Laswell. Her face grew stern, despite the worried frown lines already carving into her face.

”Don’t. We’ll get her back.”

The rest of the boys watched as she walked out of the room, Gaz muttering something sarcastic under his breath, Price pacing, Soap cursing not so quietly under his breath in his full unbridled accent, and Ghost sitting deathly still.

”I’ll talk to Briggs.”

Price said firmly, words stiff as he walked out of the room.

A moment of silence between the remaining three in the room.

Soap was the first to speak.

“Fuck!”

The sweet and irony smell of blood filled your nose as you shakily tried to move, limbs trembling for some reason.

Blinking to try and clear the blurriness in them, you opened your eyes, only to begin rapidly blinking as something small and grainy lifted from a sudden draft and blew into your eyes.

Sand.

You hated sand. The way it shifted under your feet, how it got under all your clothing and in your mouth, under your nails, and in your shoes. The grainy, grinding texture of it against your skin when you had a high-stakes mission and had to lie in it, waiting for the perfect shot.

But sand of this texture was in a handful of places, so at least you could narrow your location down a bit. Getting up and looking around would also help.

You were in a small room, from the looks of it, leaning against a wooden beam that dug at the clothing on your back with jagged edges. Textured, colorfully patterned quilts and blankets hung around, and shifting your head to turn right despite how it throbbed, you saw a corkboard filled with pins and images of people, locations, and notes. A few of the faces were recognizable, not in a good way though. Recognizable in the sense that you had seen those faces before you thought you’d killed them.

The sandy floor beneath you had wood underneath, by the feel of it. Your palms pushed against the floor, trying to get the leverage to stand up, only for you to slump against the wood again.

You needed to get up.

This time using your good leg to push against the floor, as well as your palms, you got almost halfway up the beam, nearly standing, when the sand made your foot slide back out and you fell onto the floor again.

A small, breathy chuckle from the other side of the room had you immediately turning your head, the quick movement making it spin slightly, even as you heard the sound of metal moving against the floor as well as only one footstep every few seconds.

“I don’t like the sand either. Hard on my leg, or what’s left of it, anyways.”

The American from earlier came in, maybe Alex? You’d been so disoriented when he’d told you that you could hardly remember. Fragments of foggy bits came to light, but nothing more than that.

His hair was a sandy color, dirty blonde almost, with a mustache and hair that was sticking almost straight up but short enough to not look ridiculous. His one leg was perfectly normal, but on the other, there was a curved piece of metal to replace the lower half of it where a nub was all that was left.

He offered you a hand, one you hesitated before taking. An American soldier wasn’t a threat, or at least shouldn’t be. He pulled you up as you stumbled to your feet.

“Where are we?”

Your raspy voice asked, throat dry. You tried to clear it to no avail. He grabbed a canteen from a table a few feet away, near the corkboard, and handed it to you with the lid already popped off.

“Zaravan City, Urzikstan. We’re not close to much anything, though, this is one of our safe houses.”

He spoke while you chugged the water, it flowing down your throat mercifully and filling your empty stomach, only serving to remind you that you were also starving. Food could wait, though. When you handed the nearly empty canteen back to him with a small sigh, you raised a brow.

“Our?”

A woman’s voice, thick with a familiar accent, spoke then.

“Yes, our.”

She was standing by the corkboard, glancing over the information with a sharp eye, before walking over to Alex. Her hair was dark and thick, tied tightly back into what seemed to be a ponytail beneath her dark garb. A gun hung from her hip, something semi-automatic. You weren’t sure if that was legal or not here, but couldn’t find it within you to care.

“Farah, in case you don’t remember, Riley.”

You were glad she’d told you because you most definitely did not remember her name. Her gaze met yours, and you held it for a long minute, recognizable facial features coming to your mind, like a dream, you could reach but not quite hold. And then—you remembered.

“Karim,”

You breathed, eyes narrowing. General Karim had proven to be more than capable more times than once during the scandals throughout Urzikstan, especially to the boys.

The boys.

You’d nearly forgotten until now, but you wondered just how much they knew. Whether someone had spilled, or Laswell had told them everything. They would probably be biting at the leash, but there was nothing that could be done now, not with the mission having failed.

They were on their own now.

Farah nodded.

“It is not every day we find an American in a Mexican facility,”

A pointed glance at Alex, whose lips curled slightly up at that.

You grumbled, legs still shaky, probably from the gas that had managed to slip in before you’d put the gas mask on doing rounds through your body, the last of it yet to leave. Managing to stumble over to a chair near a small round table in the corner of the room, you sat down, it groaning under your weight.

“Not every day I see a group from America and Urzikstan in a Mexican facility.”

You shot back and watched as Farah and Alex exchanged a glance, a silent conversation happening right in front of you. Rude, but you couldn’t say you hadn’t done the same thing before.

Alex sighed, grabbing the chair with one hand and easing himself down onto it with his leg, propping the prosthetic up on a nearby crate.

His blue eyes met yours as he set one elbow down on the table.

“We were going after Santiago Garza, a key member of their cartel, which we have reason to believe has…”

He exchanged a glance with Farah, who gave a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.

“…access to things he shouldn’t.”

Alex finished. Farah spoke next, already sensing your oncoming interrogation despite not being in control of the situation.

“We answered yours, now answer our question. Why did he want you?”

Her tone was demanding, leaving no wiggle room for you to try and keep anything from her. If this whole arrangement was going to work out, you were going to have to be transparent with them, anyway. Or as transparent as you could be.

“I have a… personal history with the Garza family. Not a pretty one.”

Farah pressed her lips together but didn’t question further.

The American wasn’t as smart.

“What kind of history?”

He asked, brows raised in an almost innocent expression if it weren’t for the gleam of suspicion in his eyes. You shook your head. Not willing to talk about it. Not now. Woods was the only one you’d ever talked to about it, other than David when the bastard was even there.

Which hadn’t been often.

“What’s the date?”

You then asked. If you’d been captured in America, and then taken to a supposed Mexican facility, then to Urzikstan, it must’ve taken quite a while. Not to mention the travel from there to the safe house…

“The 24th.”

Farah answered, hands moving to idly wipe sand off of the barrel of her gun, back leaning against the wooden post. Her finger remained near the trigger. Untrusting.

It had been nearly four days.

By then, someone had to have noticed the body of Nalani in your room, and your obvious absence. A homicide and a missing person’s case as well, most likely. The boys had definitely heard of it then, despite what you assumed was a mission they were on, considering how early they left that volleyball game.

Had Woods been informed? Had anyone on your team been informed, or were they still too deep in their work in your absence?

Alex’s eyes snapped to the window as he heard something rustling outside, and within moments he was down on his haunches, you and Farah were quick to follow as he lifted one of the thin sheets lying over the windows from the bottom, glancing out for a second.

The pain in your limbs was barely even noticeable compared to the mini-adrenaline rush you were flooded with, mind and body sharp and alert. You’d performed while in much worse conditions, you could manage this one just fine, you were sure.

But without a weapon, you were defenseless.

Reaching for a gun that was laid out on the table, Alex’s hand grabbing your wrist stopped you and refused to let you grab it.

“We’ll handle this, stay inside.”

He said in a hushed tone, voice firm, even though Farah was the one with the most authority here over the both of you.

Farah slowly opened the door, peeking out, dark eyes scanning the dusty roads and markets, when several shots rang out, feminine screams following quickly as the sound of people running became all too obvious.

“Al-Qatala.”

Farah murmured, jerking her chin to Alex, before slipping her gun from her side and walking out of the door, the American man giving you one last glance that clearly said “Stay here.” before following.

Racking your brain, you tried to remember anything that might help you. Urzikstan. A small country in Western Asia. Violence wasn’t uncommon, by the sound of it. And Al-Qatala…try as you might, you couldn’t remember anything about whoever they were. Maybe some sort of gang? Probably, judging by the gunfire and angry Arabic being barked out in the streets.

But you weren’t going to be helpless, stuck in this tiny “safe house” that had two entrances and one large window a man could easily fit through. You stood up, careful to stay clear of the window to avoid catching any strays, only to find the gun that had been on the table gone.

Alex must’ve taken it.

They surely had more weapons somewhere, except for the fact that no matter where you searched, there was nothing to be found. Nothing except documents of blacked-out information, pictures on the board, and a small stash of food and water lying around. A lot of dates, too.

It wasn’t an ideal situation, but you could work with it.

A few strands of rope that you quickly picked up were lying around. Every lesson you’d overheard Woods giving to his team, drilling it into their heads, began repeating in your mind. Like a dream, almost.

“Can any of you boys tell me the five rules of guerrilla warfare?”

His voice, sharp and brusque but not hostile, asked the men in front of him.

You were crouched down, hiding in one of the small areas where the metal of the walls dented outwards slightly, giving you an area to lay down and peek through at him.

One of the men raised his hand in a salute, chapped lips opening to speak.

“Hit and run, sir!”

Woods nodded, hand shooting out to point at another man down the line of soldiers. Mostly young boys who stupidly enlisted, living for their country and dying for it. You didn’t see the point, even if Woods did. You’d never seen the point, not even when Simon had enlisted.

He could’ve been one of the dead.

He still might be. You hadn’t seen him in a while.

“Ambush, sir!”

You snapped back into focus at that, eyes watching keenly as the man nodded again. He had a habit of it; nodding very often. Even if you just inclined to take a bite of soup, he’d nod. The praise was sort of nice, you supposed. Even if you barely knew him, just having arrived here a few weeks ago.

They’d found you on one of the starving horses from the camps, near the front of the marching people, leading their way to freedom despite how sickly and beaten most were. You weren’t much better.

And when the bastard controlling that camp must’ve ordered his remaining men to circle like vultures and take out as many of the surviving prisoners as he could?

Everyone alive after the vicious attack had huddled together in a small cave, the people at the entrance usually being shot from overhead planes by the men too cowardly to approach.

They’d found you huddled up, a warm body on top of you, on one of the sides. Thrown you over their shoulder. Taken you away despite your hitting and biting, and brought you here to domesticate you again. They weren’t bad. They were just soldiers. And soldiers were all about duty and honor, two things you couldn’t find within yourself to care about much anymore. You wondered if Simon still cared about them, or if he’d been numb to it for much longer. After the death of his mother, and how pissed he’d been that you’d missed the funeral, you seriously doubted it.

Snapping out of your thoughts, you watched Woods nod again. You must’ve missed the others, but you knew them by heart by now. After watching and listening for so long.

Harassment.

Mobility.

And finally…

“Surprise.”

A hand grabbed you by the arm, yanking you forward and through the wall, through the hole you’d been watching from. Woods held you by the arm infuriatingly easily, which made sense considering how much of a runt you were. Or had been at the time.

The metal had scraped against your shoulder, cutting open a shallow scratch from collarbone to right arm. You glared at him, kicking at him even as his soldiers chuckled.

Laughing at you.

You despised how patronizing it felt, leaning forward and sinking your deceivingly sharp teeth into the wrist of his hand that held you. Blood drew, and he didn’t drop you, simply moving to hold you in his other arm, smiling warmly at you as his shoulders shook from silent laughter.

“Feisty, huh?”

He said in an amused tone, ruffling your hair while someone went to grab a medic.

The memory felt warm and fuzzy, a reminder of a long time ago, though it only felt like yesterday.

But you had more important things to do than have an existential crisis.

Spying a fan in the corner, you pried the metal caging off, wrapping both hands around one of the metal pieces on it, and yanking until a piece came off. Jagged and sharp. Just how you needed it.

Wrapping your little pieces of rope around the base to protect your hand, you crept towards the back exit, listening for the sounds of any footsteps nearby. It would be hard to overhear, especially with the sounds of yelling, screaming, and gunfire in the streets. You wondered if your little makeshift friends had joined the dead or not.

A near-silent step, a branch accidentally cracking under his step, and you were on him.

Hit and run.

The metal slid smoothly into his throat, a quiet wheeze being all he could get out before you leaned his body back, watching his eyes glaze over as the blood ebbed and flowed. You pulled the gun from his hands, searching and taking what was left of his weapons as well.

One flash bang.

One knife, the case of which you strapped onto your hip, the flash bang being tucked into it soon after.

Mobility.

You crouched down, glancing left and right on the street, and breaking into a low sprint to a building down the dusty road. A restaurant by the looks of it. You couldn’t read the Arabic on the front, it having been one of the languages you hadn’t learned, even in your training for Special Forces.

More if the men flooded the streets just as you ducked behind the counter. Letting them all know you were here with gunfire wasn’t beneficial yet, not when you were so badly outnumbered. You needed to find the central point they were getting in from.

You needed to move.

Waiting for the men to pass by, you eventually went out of the back exit of the restaurant, passing the cool chill of its freezer near the kitchen before jumping onto a ladder in the alleyway outside, climbing up, and falling prone onto the ground as soon as you were there.

Looking up over the ledge, you could see now how there were so many.

Trucks were spread about the city, men exiting them and taking cover for a few seconds until they got to where they wanted to be, and started opening fire. They communicated through their radios, but why they would be here didn’t make sense.

Why try to raid a city when you couldn’t gain much, if anything from it?

Unless they weren’t trying to gain but to take someone out.

Someone who had always been against what you assumed was their little group. And that someone was none other than Farah, judging by how quickly she recognized them, and the gleam of hatred in her eyes when she looked at them. She’d been a bit too eager to slaughter them.

And with how quickly the men were flooding the roads and streets, and their communication, it wouldn’t be long until they found her.

Unless…

Glancing at the rooftop a few buildings over, you saw none other than a large tower. Not just any tower, but an antenna tower.

You observed the crowd for a moment, scanning, watching everyone, until you saw it. Heard it, rather, the loud boom it made, the man yelling “RPG!”. It was the second story of the building across the street. You couldn’t get there in time, even if you got over there without being killed or without too many civilians dying.

You needed to buy time.

Gathering the fractures courage left in your body, you got onto the balls of your feet, and against everything you’d been told, to stay quiet and unnoticeable, you began a mad dash across the building, jumping, and not stopping to marvel when your feet hit the solid ground of the other rooftop, only running further.

You still hadn’t gotten his attention.

You were almost to the antenna tower. Now or never.

Harassment.

Slipping the flash bang out of your belt-ish thing, you pulled the pin out, throwing it up in the air. You heard it when it went off, your vision blurring white as you dove and hit the floor. He must’ve heard it too, considering that when you glanced over, the large weapon was aimed at you, and when he fired, you saw it sail through the air not only at you but at the tower as well.

Diving over the edge of the building, you heard the blast, and chunks of debris and wire began raining from the sky in your area. Your ankles burned when you stood, legs screaming against any movement. Ash floated into your nose and throat, as well as the smell of fire, and you took off into another run, diving into a building, only to run face-first into another man.

Ambush.

Your fist met his jaw before his bullet met your body, but barely. You both rolled to the floor, kicking and flailing around, landing hits on each other. He jabbed at you with his gun, his knife out of reach. You rolled him onto his back, your knife coming out, only to be knocked away by his calloused hands.

Your arm went around his neck, hand locking into place with your other elbow as your knee pressed on his neck. Your breathing was pants, more gasps than anything as he gave a final few kicks, before going limp.

You picked your knife back up, head jolting up when you heard a familiar female yell just a few streets down.

The members of the Al-Qatala seemed lost, some shouting to others in Arabic, others going on rampages against civilians just for the hell of it, seemingly. You didn’t doubt that Farah had a small army of her own, but they hadn’t been prepared.

Neither had you.

Sinking lower to not attract attention, you crept through the streets, watching carefully, or as carefully as you could through your blurry vision. Sand and dust blew into it, but you couldn’t find the strength to blink it away.

Your head was throbbing again.

You weren’t sure how you managed the journey there, brain taking a temporary lapse in recording memory maybe, but the next thing you knew, you were near an old warehouse.

Talking came from inside.

A raspy voice. Old, but not kind or warm, not like the voices of the old men you were used to. Harsh and sharp. Like a whip wailing as it flew through the air. Cut paths through it.

“Where is it?”

Silence. As you crept up to the entrance of the warehouse, where the door was just slightly ajar, you could see the outline of Farah tied into a chair. Multiple other men inside. Maybe three or four. Pulling your gun slowly out, you set the handle against your knee, putting your eye right on the scope.

“We know you have the gas, Farah, or should I call you Karim?”

Cruel.

Unnecessary.

But it gave you a kernel of information.

Information you would think about later if you had the time. If you didn’t die here.

A harsh hit to the face. Audible.

You could tell it stung, but she didn’t budge.

You lined the scope up with his head, finger closing in on the trigger, holding down, just not enough until.

Surprise.

The blast of the shot alone rang out through the warehouse. Except it wasn’t who you’d been expecting to fall to the ground who did.

It wasn’t who you’d thought it had been. Not Al-Qatala, not Cartel.

No, instead, Philip Graves, director of the Shadow Company, fell sideways in the dirt.

And the men surrounding Farah?

None other than your own team that had been handed off to Graves during your departure.

Tags:

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@kazuyatokue

@kurokitty6

@popcornlauncher

@karleequinn

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

Text

Surprise Pt. 4 | Soap x Reader

Summary: Taken by someone from your past and tortured for information, memories from long ago, and truths unspoken begin to resurface.

Word Count: ~ 2.5k

Warnings: water boarding, torture, gas, dead bodies, guns, blood, grenades, flashbacks, injuries, kidnapping, yknow, the usual

A/N: (in matpats voice) the LOOOORE bonus: can you guess the two people at the end?? if you can you get extra creditt <3

Requests are open!

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Your head was pounding.

The first thing you registered was your aching wrists, rubbed raw from what you assumed to be a rope around them. You slowly tried testing out your body, trying to find any injuries or at least a general feeling of what was still functioning.

Your fingers were cold, but still movable. Arms worked all right. Your torso was sore, especially your ribs and your cheek was throbbing as well. Feet, legs, and toes still seemed to work, from the feel of it, though they didn’t feel great either. A thick blindfold lay over your eyes as you tried to open them.

Your memory slowly started to come back, and you quelled down the panic that rose within you. The accent of the men that had taken you…it sounded as if they were vaguely Iranian. And with the slight roll of their r’s? Maybe a hint of Mexican.

Not good.

Forcing yourself to focus on something else than the mind-numbing pain of your ribs, you strained to hear anything that could give you more information. You could loosely hear a fan in the background, or some sort of AC at the very least. A steady dripping, probably from the roof to the floor. Sounds of scuffling outside what must’ve been a thick door, before the sounds of metal creaking reached your ears, and you heard footsteps. Walking closer.

Very not good.

“Well, well…we meet again, compadre.”

A mocking tone. One you recognized all too well. You tried to focus on anything else, trying to keep your heart from beating out of your chest. You wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of looking nervous or afraid. You stopped your fingers from fidgeting, and your wrists from squirming beneath the ropes.

“Aw, not going to talk? That’s alright, we have some convincing methods in store for later.”

A lilt to his tone, the accent still there. The black canvas blindfold was ripped off, and your eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room.

He paced around the four stone walls, occasionally glancing at the tiny, barred window too high for even you to reach. The steady dripping continued. A constant melody.

“I have a few questions for you, mainly about those new roommates of yours, or that little plan you’ve been putting together for so long.”

Drip.

The puddle seemed to echo.

You wouldn’t tell him a thing, not when he’d already taken Nalani — oh god, poor Nalani.

Who would find her body? Would the boys come home from a mission and find it? Or would other friends come to visit and find her sickly dead form, contorted with a hole in the back of her head? How long would it be before her family knew?

She hadn’t known anything about it. About you. Who you were, what you were. She’d been innocent, a mere pawn in the game, and she’d still been crushed and pushed aside. No hesitation, no mercy.

“They had no idea, did they? Who they were living with. You really fooled them, didn’t you?”

Your gaze focused on the puddle.

Drip.

These walls became a cage all too quickly. A familiar cage, one you’d been forced in before. A cage you’d escaped before, spreading your wings and taking off. But now, your wings were clipped, and there was nothing to save you. No one to help.

“So,” He drawled, pulling out a rag and a watering can full of a liquid you assumed was water.

“Why don’t you tell me all about the reason behind your little trip to America?”

Your lips remained sealed, even as you mentally began reciting what had happened leading up to this, up from the very beginning. The boys had no idea. You’d tried to lay out hints, clues, a breadcrumb trail, but they hadn’t caught on.

He gave a tsk, wetting the rag with the water, and placing it over your face. It was cold and damp, biting against your skin. His hand slid to your throat, where he shoved your head backward, to tilt back, before pouring the watering can down.

Drip.

Water was filling your nostrils and your mouth opened to gasp for air, but-

You couldn’t.

There was no air.

You turned to one side, gasping, getting half a breath in.

Before the water came down again.

“Let me know when you’re in a talking mood.”

He said, continuing.

Even as you thrashed in that chair, a bit of your mind began reminding back, reflecting on events without telling. It had all started two months earlier, in the meeting.

“We have reason to believe a terrorist group is taking refuge near [REDACTED], we want you to find cover in a nearby area, assume the role of a new transfer student, and keep your eyes peeled. This won’t be quick, and it won’t be easy, but you’re the most qualified we have.”

“Bullshit. What about my men?”

“They’ll be taken over by [REDACTED].”

“You’re sending my team to that American pussy?”

“Are you in or out?”

“…”

“Wasp?”

“I’m in.”

Water poured down.

Drip.

Your senses filled up with what felt like cotton balls, and you only got a moment of reprieve, a few seconds to breathe before the water began pouring down again. The cloth was heavy and irritating against your skin.

You didn’t speak.

Memories blurred together in your mind, too disoriented to tell what from what, you let yourself fade back into that dark space. The little cave that became your refuge when it was all too much to handle.

The back of your mind, where you’d buried some of those memories so far deep that they could barely be coaxed out now. Older memories.

Drip.

Gunfire reigned everywhere.

You ducked behind a pile of sandbags, gun held tight to your chest. Your hair was dirty, tied back with spare rope. Two magazines left. You needed to get to him.

“Grena—“

Your ears rang as dust exploded into the air, bodies of your brethren shredding as angry Arabic made it to your ears. Some Spanish, too, but not as much.

The main building was to your left. You couldn’t cross over.

That was, until, that grenade had gone off and given you all the cover you needed to sprint into the building.

Gunfire that narrowly missed you, and your finger pressed down on the trigger, putting holes in the bodies of more soldiers. You moved, running, up the stairs and clearing it if you could. You were running off of pure adrenaline at this point, and you knew it.

A few more minutes, and you’d be out cold, dead, or worse.

Five doorways in this hallway. He was in one of them.

You opened the first one, unlocked. Nothing more than an office, much like the second and third.

The fourth was a weapon’s room of sorts, five men inside. As soon as you opened the door, they were shouting. Numb fingers unclipped a grenade, pulling the pin, throwing it in before shutting the door.

Shouting. A loud pop. Silence.

Moving to the fifth door, you heard it. His voice, in there.

“Hermanos mios, esta escoria no nos puede desanimar!”

Kicking the door open, you found him seated at a wooden chair, talking on what looked to be a live video. He turned, whirling around, brandishing a small gun that he didn’t get a chance to use before you smacked it to the ground with your gun.

Shoving him into the chair despite his screams and struggles, you took another grenade from your belt, or the poor excuse of a belt you had, anyways. The last one left.

Forcing his jaw open, you pushed it in, shoving his mouth closed around it even as he began muffled begging and a bit of tears as well. You had no pity. Not when you’d seen what this man had done to people, these people in this camp. You leaned in close, right near his ear, looking him in his soulless eyes.

You began humming, a simple song, even as you pulled the pin out. A song he would understand despite any language gap.

“Round and round the cobbler’s bench, the monkey chased the weasel,”

He began crying, shaking his head in a silent expression of horror, begging for something, anything else. He wouldn’t get it.

“The monkey thought ‘twas all in fun…”

The live continued going. He knew this, as he frantically glanced towards it. You wouldn’t turn it off. Let them see the truth behind their ‘fearless’ leader.

It was only a matter of time before…

“Pop, goes the weasel.”

“Still not eager to speak, eh? You’re tougher than before, chica.”

He gave you a moment of a break again. This time, however, he peeled the wet cloth off of your face. The drain under your chair made deep noises as it sucked all the water up. The puddle beneath your chair was large.

You blinked away whatever water remained by your eyes, and he glanced down at the now-empty watering can, making a little mocking pout.

“A shame, yes? I’ll go fill this up, and give you time to think about your roommates. I want to know all about them.”

His footsteps echoed through the now empty room that held you. Your mind began working overtime, trying to get out.

You weren’t sure how long you could last, and if you broke…it would be disastrous. On the boys. On you. On your entire team. Everyone would be in danger. So you had to get out of here.

You tried maneuvering your wrists, wincing when the raw flesh rubbed against the rope. Your ankles were left untied, for some strange reason.

Odd.

It was common knowledge to tie the ankles. You’d never exactly tied anyone down more than once or twice, but even you knew that. Was it on purpose? To make you doubt yourself? Or just to give you a glimpse of hope and snatch it away?

For whatever reason it was, you could use it.

Slipping your shoe off by pushing the back of it against the leg of the chair, you did the same and managed to push your sock off as well.

Your knife was gone, still embedded in some man’s neck, so there was no getting that back. Glancing around the room, you tried to notice anything nearby. Anything that could be used. The very basics of guerilla warfare, use anything around you to your advantage.

Nothing much in the room. The puddle, the dripping, your chair…

The chair.

There was a small piece that was fraying off down on the bottom of one of the legs, and if you managed to get that sharp wood off, it might be your ticket out of here.

Using your free foot, you trapped the piece of wood between your toes, and began pulling against it as hard as you could. A few cracks. Some more footsteps. Shit, you needed to get out of here.

Shouting from down the hall.

The wood splintered but didn’t break all the way.

Almost there….

Frantic Arabic, Spanish, and even a few other languages you didn’t catch became more than apparent throughout the building, a hissing sound releasing faintly somewhere else.

The wood broke free.

It cut the sole of your foot open, but you grabbed the piece of sharp wood with your toes, somehow maneuvering your leg over to put it in your hand. Your numb fingers grasped it as that one foot began struggling to slip the sock and shoe back on amidst the slippery blood now coating the floor.

You began moving the sharp wood against the rope. It began fraying before….you were free on one hand. Immediately moving to the other wrist, you freed that one as well.

The shouting slowly went further away, and your head began feeling fuzzy. Your shoe was back on now, at the very least. Getting up, you rushed to the door, pulling it open, immediately being greeted with a thick green gas in the air, wafting through.

Gas.

You broke into a sprint down the hall, looking for any sort of gas mask there was. The people in the hall’s cells were coughing before collapsing, their eyes brimmed red and some throwing up stomach acid. There were no gas masks.

One struggling soldier who had fallen behind was around the corner. The only reason you knew was because you heard the heavy breathing of him.

Crouching down, you tried to wait, before deciding there was no time and lunging around the corner. He fell to the ground as you tackled his legs, groaning, reaching for a gun, but too late as you lodged the piece of wood in his throat. He gasped, fingers fumbling still, but you grabbed the gun first, yanking his gas mask off as you shot him in the head.

You shoved the gas mask on as quickly as you could, holding the gun close, trying to force your weak limbs to move. Your head throbbed from the injury you’d relieved earlier, aching in pain.

Maybe you’d already inhaled too much of the gas. It might be too late already. Your knees gave out five steps into the exit, and you began crawling, arms and hands hauling your otherwise limp body across the floor. Your arms gave out about six feet in.

Two people came rushing in, gas masks on, guns up. A woman, and a man.

You tried to signal that you were still alive, to barely any avail, only able to twitch and try to crawl to them. They didn’t look like the rest of the soldiers.

“Bastards tried to gas us out. Killed their hostages.”

The man spoke. He sounded American.

“Not all of them, look..” The woman had a thick accent. She reached down to you, feeling for a pulse, and getting one. Their words slowly faded in and out.

You were being dragged. Your body limp. Someone eventually took your mask off even as you tried to protest, your tongue a dead weight in your mouth.

Minutes, maybe hours later, you were gulping down fresh air as you were pulled into a truck and sat up against what felt like maybe a seat in the back. Seats on the sides.

“…you hear me?”

Voices flitting in and out as you toed the line between unconscious and conscious.

“Find…-ntification.”

“..ma’am.”

The more air you took in, the more everything came back to you. Someone was digging around in your pockets. The American. They pulled a silver necklace out, but not just any silver necklace.

A silver necklace that wasn’t a necklace at all.

“Ge’ your’ bloody hands off ‘at.” A raspy voice spoke. Your voice, you realized. Much more British than when you’d been in that school.

The American didn’t flinch, reading the dog-tag aloud.

“Y/N “Wasp” Riley.”

He said, before dropping the dog-tag into your buzzing hands. He cocked a brow at you.

“Well, Y/N, why were you-“

“Don’ call me that.”

The woman driving the vehicle upfront spoke.

“What do you want us to call you, then?”

A pause.

“It’s Captain Riley to you.”

Tags:

@yearninglustfully

@kazuyatokue

@kurokitty6

@popcornlauncher

@karleequinn

@sharkluver

@100percentlazybonez

@kiwibao

@juneonhoth

82 notes · View notes

dreamtofus · 1 day ago

Text

Surprise Pt. 3 | Soap x Reader

Summary: The boys get called out to a mission after you get injured during a game, and your past finally catches up to you.

Word Count: ~ 4k

Warnings: minor character death, guns, blood, injuries, lil bit of angst, ptsd, panic attacks, episodes, and yeah

A/N: alr I’m kinda making it up as I go, but I feel like I’m slowly getting better at making accented dialogue…hope you enjoy<3 (also thinking of making it gaz x reader x soap, or just johnny?? lmk what u think)

Requests are open!

Previous | Masterlist | Next

The longer they stayed in your home, still keeping eyes out for any of the terrorists in the area, the more they noticed some of your odd quirks.

Simon was the first to notice many of them, due to his years of experience in the military, and all of the skills he’d acquired during that time. He observed every little thing, whether it be on purpose or unconsciously.

Like how you always locked your door after entering or leaving, both locks as well. Not just one. Or the way your windows remained shut and locked, dark curtains pulled over most of them to block out any light or keep someone from looking in.

There was a knife under your pillow, and a small gun in the drawer of your nightstand. Simon would know, he’d searched the entire house when they’d first arrived, not sure if he could trust you or not. You had a gun safe in your room’s closet, and the screws on your room’s hinges were slightly unscrewed, as were every door in the house, so it would creak every so slightly when opened. So you could locate everyone in the house.

It reminded him of his habits a bit too much.

But you also had a kernel of authority to you, despite sometimes mumbling instead of speaking clearly, or the tiniest of nervous ticks he could notice, like how your lips would twitch left when unsure or insecure. Despite your stone-faced look now, you still had a few of the same tells that the little girl he’d known all those years ago did.

He only wondered what had happened to that little girl.

But he knew she’d grown up. And what he saw in you now wasn’t what he recalled from the girl he’d threatened in the past, the girl he’d intimidated and scared into staying away. Because now, you didn’t seem afraid of him at all. Not afraid of his comrades, either.

You were different in more than a few ways, now. He knew foster care had been rough on you, with god knows how many families taking you in only for money or being abusive. He barely knew the general timeline of how long you’d been in it. He’d heard tiny bits of it you’d offhandedly mentioned, and you seemed to have found a more permanent home at 12, staying until moving out here, looking for what most teenagers are, a meaning and some freedom.

But he hadn’t known just how rough it had been.

You’d gotten home from work looking beat one night, wearing some jeans, a uniform shirt, a belt, and per usual a holster for your gun. You always insisted on carrying it, and he didn’t blame you. Bad things happened to girls who lived alone here.

You didn’t even take any time to eat or change before walking into your room and collapsing into bed, asleep in a second. Work always seemed to tire you out, for whatever reason, but maybe they had you doing all kinds of shit he didn’t know waitresses did. Who was he to assume?

“She should eat dinner, at least.” Price said, watching from the couch as Johnny pouted slightly. He’d cooked a meal, especially for you, albeit Gaz had done most of the work and helped him out, basically making the entire dish, poor Soap had been waiting all day to try it.

“I can go get her?”

Kyle suggested, and Simon’s deep rumbling voice spoke up next, glancing over to your closed door, a neat “Do not enter.” sign on the front.

“She don’t like when people go in ‘er room.”

“Well, she’s breakin’ poor Soap’s heart.”

“She’s yer sister, why don’t you go get the lass.”

“She’d beat his ass, that’s why.”

Simon gave an exasperated sigh, getting up from where he’d been sitting next to Price, watching a soccer game. He approached your door, slowly opening it as it creaked. The lights were off, the room completely dark as the windows were also covered by the thick curtains you kept.

You’d made it clear that no one was allowed in your room before, but it looked normal to him. The walls were a shade of your favorite color, or what he assumed was, fairy lights with clips on them holding pictures of you and friends, and even a picture from years ago of the family, hanging from wall to wall. There was a desk at the front, papers thrown about and some neatly arranged. The clothes basket smelled vaguely of an irony tang he didn’t bother to investigate at the time.

A mirror hung on the other end of the door.

Walking quietly up to you, he watched you for a moment. Your body was deathly still, breathing quietly but a bit shaky. He could see your eyes moving beneath your eyelids, the movements erratic and frantic.

Despite himself, Simon found himself intrigued by the papers on your desk. Why had you bothered to keep them out of your room? What were you hiding? His military career kept him on his toes at all times and kept him suspicious of everyone.

After all, it was the people you trusted that could hurt you the most.

Walking silently over to your desk, he began going through papers. Gaz and Soap, now both watching through the doorway, made little hushed whispers of “Wha’ are you doing??” and “Jus’ wake ‘er up-“ that he ignored. The papers were all basic, nothing interesting.

Essays, research papers, lots of notes. But just when he thought he wouldn’t find anything, he slid open one drawer as it creaked slightly as well, finding files in it. Paper, Manila folders that were thick with information that he found himself curious about. However, just when he reached for the first one, he heard Johnny.

“Behind ye, Lt-“

The cold metal of a gun against the side of his head became more than apparent as someone kicked the backs of his knees in. A gun to his head, on his knees, with Gaz and Soap now in the room, hands up, carefully trying to approach him.

“Easy, lass. We ain’t gonna hurt ya..”

Johnny tried, and that was when Simon realized it wasn’t some enemy terrorist who had gotten in who was holding him at gunpoint, no, it was you. He hadn’t even heard you approach. Hadn’t heard you get out of bed or move at all.

But he did hear the hammer of the gun click back.

The first thought he had was that he was being betrayed. Double-crossed. Either that or you were having some sort of episode. Price approached the door, watching you like a wounded animal. Unlike Simon, he could see the way your eyes weren’t there, that you were somewhere else, in an entirely different world, doing what you thought was right.

Price slowly approached, bolder than both of the Sergeants, but with a practiced precision. He’d done this before. They could tell.

“Can you tell me who you’re pointin’ a gun at?”

He asked, voice unwavering and not full of pity, but instead understanding. He watched your eyes slowly trail from the gun to Simon, now completely still, and held a hand for Gaz and Soap to stay where they were. He could tell when the realization slowly began dawning on you, that you weren’t in danger, and that this was Simon.

A tiny click, the safety being switched on, before you took the gun from Simon’s head and set it on the floor, kicking it away from you to Price. Usually, you wouldn’t sleep with a gun on your person for this reason. By the time you would open the nightstand to grab it, you’d usually have already snapped out of it.

Sighing deeply, you slumped on the floor beside Simon as he slowly relaxed, and you curled up into a ball. You didn’t say anything, and neither did they. Price took the gun, standing and walking out of the room, giving a nod to Gaz and jerking his head to Soap as the Captain and Johnny left the room.

Kyle remained nearby, just in case, but didn’t say anything.

“Didn’ know you had it in ya to hold a gun to my head,” Simon said, trying for a bit of humor to make you laugh, or even hear a snort in reply, or even a snarky comment about how stupid he was. When you didn’t do anything, he silently sighed.

“How often do you have ‘em?”

“Every night.”

He made a small grunt at that. He could understand nightmares a bit too well, considering the demons of his own he had. He put an arm slowly around you, and when you didn’t stiffen, he considered it okay as he slowly stood, picking you up. However, as soon as he picked you up, you mumbled something under your breath and squirmed free, standing on your own.

“Let’s get ya some fresh air.”

He said, leading you out of the room. He took one last glance at the open file drawer and decided that you had your secrets, and he had his, and it could stay like that until either of you was ready to change it.

Nothing had changed since that night, other than one thing.

No one tried to wake you up again.

However, you remained as sassy and slightly stoic as usual, still caring for them, and now savoring every one of Johnny’s dinners to make up for the one you’d missed that night.

When they showed up covered in blood, sweat, and tears, you would take it in stride, patching them up and grumbling about buying more medical supplies, washing their clothes, and buying razors for them because, “A beard does not suit any of you but Price.” You’d even bought food they liked, albeit making them cough up some money for it, because of the job you had at some little restaurant they’d never heard of before as a waitress. You only really worked the job on some weekends, when you weren’t on a big absence for traveling during volleyball season, or at camps.

Your manager-landlord was surprisingly lenient about it, Simon thought. But considering all the weapons you had, he wouldn’t be surprised if a little threat went a long way.

He’d always wondered what you did at those volleyball games, anyway. That was until Price spoke up about it at breakfast one morning when you hadn’t left early for practice, and Laswell had eventually just informed them to lie low until further orders came.

“You oughtta come out wit’ us, get out the house a lil’.”

Johnny had suggested, and Gaz had given a little affirming nod. Simon remained silent, quietly watching as you shook your head.

“Can’t, got games today.”

You replied without even glancing up at them, eyes on your plate of scrambled eggs and bacon. That was the usual. You always had games, training, work, or school. With a schedule as busy as that, none of them knew how you managed it, but it left little to no time for you to simply relax or hang out with them.

Johnny grumbled about something with his mouth full of eggs when Price spoke up.

“Why don’ we go watch, eh? You been havin’ me help wit’ the plans, might as well.” He suggested before taking a big bite of bacon. You paused at that, glancing up at Price, studying him, before swallowing the food in your mouth.

“I’ll think about it.” Was the only answer they’d gotten at the time, but around thirty minutes before the game, you’d texted Simon the address, which was enough of a sign for him to get the boys and head over to your school, walking in the gym and paying for their entry. Six dollars for an adult, players were free.

To be fair, they tried their hardest to dress in civilian clothes and act normal, but it was hard when their instincts screamed to check every corner, keep eyes on the windows and doors, and scan for possible entries and exits.

You and your team were already practicing by then, setting up a hitting line, one setter in the front middle, two lines of hitters taking turns, and two passers in the back row bumping the ball to the setter, who promptly set it, and the hitter smacked it over.

Many of the girls were tall, and while you weren’t too short, standing at around 5’7 now, you weren’t the tallest either. That might’ve been the reason that you were mainly a back-row passer, also taking into consideration the control you held over your hits and body as well. The other team got full court to practice before the game for 2 minutes, which must’ve been the usual around this area.

“They bette’ win this,” Gaz murmured, seated to the left of Price, who watched as another girl on the team whispered something in your ear that had you biting your lip to hold back a smile. You were close with these people, they could all tell that.

“Our lass’ got it, I’m sure.”

Johnny said, watching the other team practice while Simon did the same. Simon’s attention was then diverted back to you, as any hint of laughter or amusement faded from your expression, into the stone wall he’d come to know. With a notebook in hand, you went over something with the rest of the team as they all huddled, the coach nearby and nodding along with it as they pointed something out with a pencil in hand.

A few adjustments must’ve been made before a game of rock-paper-scissors was played between the two coaches to decide who got first serve. The other team did. Already off to a disadvantage, he thought.

You all took up your positions in the court, Simon not recognizing anyone but you, with your hair, braided tightly back by one of your teammates, and the bright red jersey everyone on your team wore. You were number 14. He vaguely remembered Johnny mentioning something about you wearing a jersey in the number 14.

You were in the top right position, tucking any stray pieces of hair that had gotten loose somehow behind your ears, before all of your team was in position. The serve was hit over by the other team, and a brunette in the back row passed it to the setter, who made the ball go in a perfect arch in your direction. You began the approach of the ball, jumping up, arm held back, and ready to spike it. The blockers for the other team jumped, ready to deflect any ball, but right when you were going to spike it, your left non-hitting hand tipped the ball over the net.

Right between the blockers.

“Cleva girl,” Gaz said with a small smirk, and Soap lowly whistled. You didn’t glance up at them, expression remaining still despite the clever move.

It hit the floor, and a whistle sounded. Your team’s point. A rotation was done, and you were serving. They watched you toss the ball up, approach, jump, and smack it down all in less than 15 seconds before you were back in your spot, ready for the ball to be returned.

“Bloody hell..” Simon said, watching the two teams volley. He didn’t know many of the rules of volleyball, only Price knew most of them because of some of your late-night conversations on strategies to use with your team, but he was pretty damn sure you were doing good.

Your team moved in fluidity with each other, and it made Simon wonder what the hell you’d been putting these girls through in those training sessions, and what your coach had been doing. It reminded him a little of his team, his Task Force. The way you all knew each other, how high a set had to be for one specific person, the way one girl would slightly skew her bumps to the left, and the setter would move accordingly, or how to interweave without bumping into one another.

And the way you held everyone together… reminded him of Price the most.

When someone messed up, you didn’t yell or look disappointed, you simply glanced at them, acknowledged them, and gave a small nod. The same when someone pulled something off well. When you won the first set, you didn’t let your team gloat in the victory for too long.

And when you were losing the second set? Your teammates got a bit skittish, sure, but the way you remained almost totally unaffected kept them together. You were the glue of the team, keeping everyone out of their heads and in the game.

The second set was lost, but the third set remained.

“They play the last one to fifteen’.”

Price informed the boys after they’d sat up a little more, on the edge of their seats, bodies taught with stress. Kyle could’ve sworn Johnny was sweating a bit.

It went over fifteen, as you had to win by two points, and it was currently 15-16. One more point and the opposing team would win. But three more points and your team would.

Price’s phone began ringing.

A harsh serve from the opposite team and the bump was skewed by an anxious redhead in the back row. It went too far to the side, and you were running for it, but it looked too far away.

Two steps away.

Price was talking quietly to whoever was calling, his work voice on. Simon was too focused on you to care about the phone.

You weren’t close enough.

One knee went down closer to the ground, and your remaining foot kicked off the ground as your body dove for it.

A grim tone from the Captain as he nodded to whatever question Gaz had asked, while he ended the call.

Only a foot away.

Your hand flattened against the ground just as the ball bounced off of it, your head smacking hard against the floor.

Price muttered something to Soap, who tried nudging Simon, but didn’t get his attention, his eyes on you.

Your team played the ball off of the save, and the opposing team lost the point. The whistle was blown while the game was 16-16, mainly because you weren’t getting up. Out cold.

Simon shot to his feet, already, heading in your direction. There was red spreading on the floor, and he was back in his family home, looking down at his mother’s crumpled body, flashes of his little nephew’s bloodied corpse, and his brother’s shredded body coming into view.

He wasn’t there fast enough, he couldn’t get to you fast enough. He had failed.

Before he could go down even a single step, Price’s hand came down onto his shoulder firmly, holding him back. Grounding him. As he turned to face the Captain, Price spoke.

“It’s Laswell. Urgent, they need us.” He spoke quietly, and Ghost could only look on as they picked up your unconscious form from the floor, a part of your blond hair dyed red with the liquid oozing from it, and carried you away.

“She’ll be alright, Lt. Let’s go,” Soap said, grabbing Simon’s hand and pulling him along like a lost puppy. Gaz and Price were talking about something in front of them as they walked out.

The moment they got to the car, Price pulled their uniforms out of the trunk.

“Jus’ in case,”

He said, tossing them to each respective man, and Price drove while the rest of them changed in the car. The moment Simon slipped his mask on, he willed himself to forget about anything regarding you.

The job came first.

Your head was swimming and fuzzy. Your limbs refused to cooperate properly.

You recognized your bed, the dark curtains on the windows, and the smell of your room, covered in the perfume you always wore. Your vision was blurry, too blurry to simply be from sleeping.

Swallowing, you tried to sit up, only to find your throat dryer than a desert and your limbs shaky and weak. You made a small grunt when you tumbled from the bed to the floor, vision blurring more before going slightly back to normal. As normal as it could be right now.

You heard a small female gasp and your bedroom door opened with a creak. One of your closest friends from the volleyball team, Nalani, walked in, immediately going to your side.

Her brown, bronze skin reminded you of Gaz, and her long, dark intricate braids you’d always been amazed by hung in a ponytail behind her. Sure, you two might’ve fooled around a bit a few months back, but that was behind you. Behind both of you. She was a friend, just a friend, even if friends didn’t usually share beds and know how each other tasted.

But you trusted her more than most, that was for sure.

She’d seen your scars, heard what you could tell her without endangering her life, and she hadn’t backed away. She’d embraced it with you. Even on your worst days.

“You just busted your head open, you need to stay in bed.”

She mumbled, putting you back into the bed after lifting you. She’d changed you into your favorite pair of shorts and a loose T-shirt. It was only when she began going on and on about how stubborn you were, that you noticed a blur of movement in the doorway.

You’d seen Simon’s friends leave earlier. Assumed they’d been on a mission again.

You began pushing against Nalani, and she looked confused.

“What? What’s wrong?”

Your throat was too dry and cracked. You rasped to get something out as a gun poked around the corner. A silencer on it.

“Down, get-“

You tried pushing her down, the other hand reaching for the gun in your nightstand, fingers fumbling to find it. You were too late.

A near silent shot, and there was a hole in the back of her head that you couldn’t see but knew was there. She crumpled to the ground as you tried again to grab your pistol from the nightstand drawer, only to realize that Price had never returned it after that night.

Cursing under your breath, you grabbed the knife from under your pillow, a hunting knife, and threw it, watching as it embedded itself into the man peeking around the corner’s neck.

One down.

More came, though. Too many. Your vision blurred as you heard male voices talking, a shot down by your legs, but not quite hitting.

They were trying to disable you.

Your head was throbbing, adrenaline making you forget grief in the moment. Pain exploded through your veins as you felt a bullet whiz past you, nicking your right arm. Three men stormed the room, clearing it, before one of them came into sight, kneeling to be eye level with you.

“Thought we wouldn’t find you, yes? The Wasp’s Nest is not as secure as you thought. We’ll get our retribution.”

He spoke mockingly to you, before shoving a white bag over your head. Other voices filled the room, quiet, but loud enough for your dwindling consciousness to catch.

“…useful?”

“It’ll work……able to….again.”

“…knock her..”

“Roger that..”

You felt the blunt force of the back of a gun being slammed against your head, and your vision went black.

If you’d told the truth, then maybe none of this wouldn’t have happened.

But in the end.

The job came first.

Tags:

@yearninglustfully

@kazuyatokue

@kiwibao

@kurokitty6

@sharkluver

@100percentlazybonez

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

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Surprise | Soap x Reader

Summary: After a mission that they barely survived, Ghost leads the team to a safe place to stay, his half-sister’s apartment.

Word Count: ~ 1.6k

Warnings: mentions of death, blood, missiles, etc

A/N: first time writing for cod…hope you enjoy, lmk what to do for part 2!! (also here is what I had in mind for the apartment layout, if you’re like me and can’t picture buildings in your head)

Requests are open!

Masterlist | Next

Their mission had gone to complete shit.

It had started relatively simple compared to the other missions they’d been doing, with Russians, cartels, Mexican forces, and whatnot. They’d been shipped out to America, a suspected terrorist group that had been working for General Barkov when he’d been killed.

A group that had now gone rogue, and rumor was that they were headed to Britain, holding a missile for transport that had been stolen from a covert American base. The Americans weren’t taking it too well, but that was to be expected.

“We don’t have enough information to know who they are, you just need to get that missile transported, and get out of there.” Laswell had told them.

“Sounds easy compared to what we do every mornin’, right Lt?” Soap had said with a grin, nudging him with an elbow slightly, and he had only given a grunt in response, still processing information.

“Easy” his arse.

Sent to one of the states at first, they’d tracked down this supposed terrorist group, apparently it being a lot larger than they originally expected. A lot larger.

It was only because of the intel Gaz had gotten his hands on that they’d been able to locate the missile while it moved, it being located in a broken-down warehouse near Galveston, Texas. Right near the Gulf of Mexico, if they were planning on taking it to sea to travel with it.

And when they’d stormed the warehouse?

A total mess. Unorganized and sloppy.

Soap had blown the door, and they’d planted charges around to detonate for the men guarding the missile but had underestimated just how many there would be. It was crawling with them, more confirmation that they’d been informed somehow beforehand of Task Force 141.

Men in vents, ceiling panels, underneath desks, and hiding behind cabinets, doors, anything.

The missile had only been taken out because of air support, the same air support that had nearly been shot down and taken out, when a heli had finally come in to reprieve them while snatching that missile up and getting the hell out of there.

That didn’t solve the problem of the men everywhere, though. The charges that had been meant to blow some to pieces had been botched, and with all the gunfire, they would attract unwanted attention. Police were already investigating, conveniently turning a blind eye to Price and the rest of his force. It wasn’t a coincidence. Not when Shepherd had a history of paying people off to keep them quiet.

But that wasn’t their problem, right now, Ghost was trying to devise a way to get them the hell out of America, or at least out of goddamn Texas. Of all the places to be stuck in.

“Laswell, where the hell is our exfil?”

He radioed over, crouched down on the roof of a building, taking out whoever he could from it. Many of the men in the terrorist group weren’t a bad shot either, so he decided to keep his head relatively low.

“Negative, Ghost.” Price’s voice responded.

“The hell does that mean?”

“We aren’t leaving. Too many men still here, Kate wants us keeping eyes on ‘em.”

“Bloody fucking hell..”

They had decided to regroup at an old church down the road, Soap was a little banged up, with more than a few cuts and bruises, and Gaz dealing with a minor head injury he’d gotten when someone had tried to smash his skull in with a gun, and Price donning a decent sized cut to the arm.

“This is a covert mission. We can’t stay at a hotel or anything of the like, so where are we going?” Gaz asked, and Price paused for a moment, looking a bit unsure, which made sense considering this had been a get-in-get-out mission before it had changed. Before he could open his mouth to speak, Ghost spoke.

“I know someone, but they’re a long ways away.”

~ 3:48 A.M.~

A knock that was more like a banging on your door woke you up from your light sleep as you quietly sat up in your bed, standing and tiptoeing over to the front door of your spacey apartment.

It was large, for the price. But considering you were working for the landlord at a local restaurant, as he was the general manager there as well, it made sense.

The apartment held two spare bedrooms, and a nice living room connected to a kitchen with a table in it you liked using. Two bathrooms, one in the hallway where your room was in, another connected to a guest bedroom. A little balcony, which came in handy when one of your friends wanted a smoke break when over at your place.

Palming the closed hunting knife still connected to your pants and hanging loosely, you figured you were safe enough to answer the door, and looking through the peephole, you saw four men.

Military, and the one in the Ghost mask…

Opening the door, your face now annoyed, you stared him dead in the eye. Didn’t even glance at the others.

“We need a place to stay. A month or two at most.”

His low and rough voice, donning a British accent, said. It was louder than you remembered him being, but then again, he wasn’t the scared little Simon that you’d known anymore, scared of the abusive father you’d both shared. He wasn’t the Simon who mumbled or spoke quietly anymore.

A silent conversation passed between you two at the door, a thick silence passing over the entire group. The other men stared. Your eyes narrowed, a nonverbal question.

Are you on a mission?

He didn’t move for a moment, no doubt thinking of the information he could share with you. Another reason for your eventual fallout, the fact that he wouldn’t ever share with you anything if what he did. It was always to keep you safe.

Eventually, he gave a tiny, near imperceptible nod. On a mission. Of course, he would come to you while on a mission, dragging you into it. It wasn’t like you were helpless against attackers, not at all, but they’d had some crazy shit happen to them over the years, and that was just from what you’d overheard.

With a resigned sigh, you looked over at the other men he’d brought.

A taller man, with a beard, and a bucket hat. He looked like he had authority. A man on the shorter end, with some scruff, a mohawk, and a poorly restrained cheeky smile. The last man was darker, an almost caramel brown, with short hair, cleanly shaven, and a hat on.

Military men, clearly, but if Simon was willing to trust them around you, then you didn’t count them much as a threat right now.

“Names.”

You said flatly, and the Mohawk-one’s brows raised before replying.

“You can call me Soap-“

“I mean your name, not your shitty military nickname.”

You interrupted bluntly, clearly not in the best mood after being woken at 3 AM because of Simon Riley. “Soap” raised his hands in a mock gesture of innocence.

“Easy, lass. It’s Johnny, if you must know.”

Scottish, then. You could tell by the accent. The taller one spoke.

“John Price.”

The prettiest of the group spoke with a little smile that could’ve fooled you for not being faked.

“Kyle.”

Giving them all one last flat, surveying look, you jerked your head into the apartment, walking in.

“Two guest bedrooms down that way, bathrooms down the hall, there’s a balcony if you want a second exit. Don’t break anything.”

You said simply, and they walked in, looking tired as hell and covered in bandages. However, you weren’t going to let this go. Not right now.

You grabbed Simon by the arm, and he stiffened, stopping.

“You and I are going to have a little talk, Simon.” You said, dragging him into your room, and shutting the door behind you as he sighed, pulling his mask off. Blond hair and lashes came into view, as well as baby blue eyes.

“What the fuck were you thinking, bringing-“

You began, pissed as hell. He hadn’t contacted you in years, not since his mom had died, and with your shared father already dead, you’d been shoved into foster care.

“We’re all injured. We can’t stay anywhere we can be easily found. This area isn’t as well registered, and we’ll be gone in a month.” He spoke simply as if it wasn’t anything to get upset or emotional about.

You took a breath and breathed it out. Stay calm.

“I’m not talking about the mission, Simon.”

He seemed unused to being called his real name. At least, by the stiffening of his shoulders, you guessed so.

“There’s nothing else to talk about.”

He said gruffly, turning to open the door and leave. You stepped in his way, and he stared down at you, unamused. You were barely 5’6, and he was 6’2, so it was quite the height difference.

“You can’t run from your problems forever, Simon.”

You said, hands on your hips, and he simply picked you up, placing you beside him as he opened the door and walked out. Always running from his problems.

It was surprisingly unsurprising.

~ 4:07 A.M.~

“You want to explain who the hell that is, Simon?”

Price asked gruffly from where they were all gathered in one of the guest rooms. Simon paused his quiet pacing for a moment to reply.

“My half-sister.” He answered, and a silence fell over at that. The only sibling they knew he had was Tommy, and Tommy was long dead at that. A few seconds passed, before Soap, in the bathroom connected to this particular guest room, combing his Mohawk and going through his haircare routine, spoke up.

“She’s a real bonnie lass.” Johnny said with a grin, and Simon sighed.

“English, MacTavish.”

“She’s hot as fuck, sir.” The Scotsman said, and there was a small, disappointed sigh from Gaz, who already knew he’d have to patch up Soap from Ghost, who was fuming silently.

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dreamtofus · 1 day ago

Text

OH MY GOD YES THIS WAS EVERYTHING THIS WAS SO GOOD??????!!!!!!!!!

Regrets | Ghost x Reader

Day 25: Simon “Ghost” Riley

Summary: After a rough night, Simon treats you a bit too roughly, and tries to make it up to you.

Word Count: ~2.3k

Warnings: SMUT, p in v, mentions of rape, allusions to past rape, rough sex, panic attacks, simon being a meanie, sort of dubcon? but it’s okay they make up after it (smut to angst to comfort)

Minors, do not interact!

A/N: thank you to anon who requested this, I hope it’s what you wanted, if the writing tone randomly switches up it’s prob bc I fell asleep 300 words in and finished it later, hope you enjoy regardless<3

Requests are open!

It had originally been a one-night stand, something simple with no strings attached, no expectations Ghost had to keep up with or care about.

He’d met you at a bar, a girl able to handle more alcohol than him despite his much larger body. It wasn’t every day he saw that.

One night had turned into two, two had turned into three, and now he was showing back up again, dragging himself to the doorstep of your apartment where he knew you lived. He’d seen your car outside in the parking lot, so he knew you were home. Those three nights had turned into almost daily visits when he was on leave.

Some nights, he’d stay a bit longer, treat you how a proper gentleman would’ve with the aftercare, giving a bottle of water, a little towel wiping you down, and tucking you in. He knew it wasn’t fair to give you little tastes of what you could’ve had instead of him, but he just couldn’t help it.

You two weren’t exactly a couple, but were more than just fuck-buddies at this point. You’d let him come over and eat dinner, watching him shovel down an impossible amount of food, devouring everything like the human garbage disposal he was. Most nights were followed with slow sex, not exactly tender as much as being patient and gentle, not rushing it. He’d been rushed too often on the field to enjoy it when on leave most days.

But today he was angry.

Recruits had arrived, and been shoved into a team at the last minute with Ghost because of some complications with their commanding officer being out, so he’d had to take over. You’d think that the men had never held a gun before in their lives, considering their shitty grip and twitchy trigger fingers. They’d been all too eager to please at training, trying to show off to the Lieutenant who didn’t seem to care much, annoyed brown eyes flicking between them to check their forms.

He’d approached one of the taller rookies, opening his mouth to correct his stance while going through the motions and exercises, and that was when it had happened. The man had grabbed the base of his balaclava, yanking the fabric roughly up in a way that made it scratch against his scars.

The other recruits had all dropped what they were doing, trying to catch a glimpse of Simon’s face, failing as it was pulled right back down, and he promptly beat the ballsy recruit’s ass.

But even after, he was still angry. His blood was boiling beneath his skin, even after filing a report, leaving the base with bloodied knuckles and a scowl on his covered face. And well, he’d never been one to indulge in rough sex, not after what he’d heard his father did to his mother in the night when he thought no one was listening. He could still hear the crying and begging if he tried hard enough.

But he wasn’t thinking. He wasn’t in the mood for the usual tender session, the buildup just as enjoyable as the release. He needed an outlet.

Your door wasn’t locked when he opened it, throwing his bag to the side of the door, shutting it, and sliding the bolt shut before moving to hunt you down. There was a nice aroma coming from the kitchen, the smell of sweets, freshly baked cookies, or brownies.

He walked, more like stormed, into the kitchen, mask staying on, towering over you even from a distance as he saw you pulling a tray out of the oven, one full of cookies, chocolate chip, just the way he liked them. You pulled your oven mitts off, clicked a button to turn the oven off, and heard his heavy footsteps. You turned, smiled, and offered him one.

“Hey, Si. Just finished cookies, you want one?”

You asked. He didn’t reply. He just stood, staring at you from the holes in his skull mask. You swallowed, seeing the black pit of hunger forming in his eyes, not for the cookies or any other food you’d usually have for him. His hands went to his belt, and you tried to shove down the little tingle of anxiety you felt forming.

He didn’t fiddle with the buckle, pulling, pushing, and having it off in less than five seconds flat. He let it clatter to the floor, missing the way you flinched just a little bit, too focused on pulling his shirt off, military pants soon to follow.

You got the message, eyes watching him all too closely as you pulled off your shirt and slid your shorts down.

He grunted something, maybe a word you didn’t understand, before grabbing you by the wrist and pulling you off to the bedroom. When you were both down the hall, he picked you up, tossing you on the bed.

On any other day, you might’ve found it amusing or hot how easily he could manhandle you. Today, you just weren’t really in the mood, but you could play pretend if he needed it that bad. You didn’t want to disappoint him, not when you’d finally gotten him to slowly let you in behind the walls he’d built up.

He crawled into the bed, hand hooking into your panties and pulling them off, throwing them on the floor, and spitting on his hand before shoving it in his boxers, pulling his half-hard cock out. He gave it a few pumps, lining it up at your entrance.

You scrambled a bit, having absolutely no prep, a stark contrast to the usual at the very least 20 minutes of him scissoring his fingers in, rubbing and occasionally licking your cunt.

He pushed in despite the little grimace on your face as the sting of the stretch made your eyes water. His eyes fluttered shut with a little raspy groan, and he didn’t let you adjust for a second when he bottomed out, moving immediately in sharp thrusts.

“Fuck—slow down, need a minu—“

You tried to gasp out, the friction between your hardly wet folds and his poorly lubed dick burning slightly. He didn’t pay you any mind, continuing with the deep thrusts that were certainly bruising your insides where the tip slammed against each time.

“Fuckin’ deal with it,”

He growled, British accent heavy and thicker the closer he grew to his release. Your throat tightened, tears welling, as you tried to push him away.

He didn’t move.

He grabbed your hips with his meaty hands, shoving you back down to him. It wasn’t the first time you’d been trapped by a man, crushed underneath him, his dick inside of you when you didn’t want it.

And suddenly it wasn’t Simon Riley above you, it was him.

His hands holding you down, keeping you from moving. His cock shoving in and out, ignoring the friction from you being drier than the Sahara desert. His raspy grunts and heavy breathing. Him using you.

You kicked and flailed, desperate not to just be held down, docile like before. The ball of your feet kicked him directly in the knee, his bad knee, the one he’d taken a bullet in before, and he crumpled, being roughly pushed out of you as you kicked and shoved him away with your feet.

“Red,”

You finally choked out, scooting away from him, despite Simon being back to being Simon Riley again. The skull mask stared at you, but was abandoned quickly, pulled off as soon as he saw how you shook, tears rolling down your cheeks before you curled in on yourself in the bed. He’d fucked up, he knew it.

Honey brown eyes smudged with eyeblack watched as sobs shook your body. He didn’t know what to do.

“Hey,”

He tried, rough voice mellowing down to a little more than a cooing baby voice. He knew what this was. He should’ve recognized the signs from the beginning.

Your sobs quieted to sniffles over time. He shoved his dick back in his boxers, feeling as if he deserved the sting of pain from the sensitivity that came from the rough handling. He scrambled for any clothes, pulling out a pair of his jogging shorts and one of his on-leave shirts and pulling them quickly on.

He grabbed a water bottle from your dresser, not knowing nearly how old it was, but deciding that anything was better than nothing, and he wasn’t leaving you alone to go to the kitchen right now.

He unscrewed the cap, set it down on the nightstand, and kneeled at the side of the bed. His finger connected with the bottom of your chin, pulling your face up, to see your watery eyes meet his. He offered the water, putting the tip at your lips, watching your trembling hand reach to steady it as you took a long drink.

“I’m sorry,”

He whispered. It was hard to speak when your body language was suffocating him. He’d scared you. He’d had his panic attacks before, he knew what they felt like, how catastrophic they could be on your mind and body.

You handed the bottle back, breathing a little bit steadier now, which reassured him at the least. You stared.

He’d never been good at making idle conversations, not without someone to carry the backbone of it and keep it smoothly going like you and his Sergeant were easily able to do, but he would try.

“I was thinkin’ about those cookies you made. Maybe we could—watch a movie, one o’ them…”

His voice trailed off, watching as you wiped your eyes, calming down, eyes refilling with something other than blind panic.

“…those—the, uh, cheesy romcoms you like, yeah? Laugh at how dumb they look? We did that over a pizza once, was cracking up so bad I almost had to pull the Heimlich on ya.”

He glanced hopefully up at you as he heard a little giggle bubble up out of your throat through the sniffles. He’d filtered out some of the usual words he would use for those shitty romcoms, knowing it might set you off.

It was only when he caught sight of the curve of your breast, was he reminded that you didn’t have any clothes on.

“You…want me to get you some clothes, luv?”

You nodded. He got up, moving to the dresser once more, opening the drawers, pulling out the pajama set with different little cartoon dinosaurs on them that he knew you loved, as well as a pair of your more comfortable underwear.

He handed you the clothes, shutting his eyes as he heard you shuffling around, a little blush coloring his pale cheeks. It was only when he felt your hand brush his shoulder, that he dared crack one eye open, seeing you in your pj’s, as you slid your legs over the bed, not even hitting the floor as he picked you up.

He knew you were sore. He’d seen how you’d hesitated before trying to stand before he’d scooped you up.

You hadn’t recoiled at all, so he took it as a sign that he could keep holding you, and he stood, walked to the kitchen, grabbed the tray of cookies in its entirety, and walked to the living room, plopping you down on the couch with the cookies, and handing you the remote.

“Find us somethin’ to watch, yeah? I’ll be right back.”

He murmured, brushing his lips against your cheek and walking into the kitchen again.

You grabbed the remote, using it to turn the TV on, before scrolling through your options for the cheesiest, worst-rated romance there was. You and Simon had watched one or two, but he never stayed long after they ended.

You found a particularly awful one that was free with ads, and you paused it at the very beginning, hearing the sound of popping, your microwave buzzing, the sound of something being pushed around, and a few cabinets being opened, before an exasperated sigh.

“Where the hell are the bags?”

He asked from the kitchen, and you giggled to yourself, grabbing a cookie from the tray and taking a big bite.

“Bottom, left of the fridge.”

You called back, and moments later, he appeared with a bowl of popcorn, and a bag of ice that he handed to you. You raised a brow.

“Don’ know where it hurts, but I know you’re sore.”

He replied. He’d thought about trying to put it where it might hurt but quickly realized that putting a bag of ice on your vagina might not come off well after the events of the night.

“Thanks.”

You murmured, adjusting it to where you wanted, taking a bite of popcorn.

“No need. I was bein’ an ass.”

A beat of silence.

“Yeah, you were.”

You took a handful of popcorn.

“You wanna talk about it?”

A strange question from a man who was so unemotional most of the time, but you figured with his smarts, he’d figured out why you’d reacted like that. You shook your head. A little nod, and he was ready to talk about it later, if not right now.

“Let’s watch the movie.”

You spoke, turning it on, setting the remote down as he wrapped a gentle arm around your shoulder, pulling a blanket from the floor overtop the both of you.

It was safe to say the rest of the night was spent giggling at the movie, his dead one-liners making you laugh your ass off as you both made fun of it.

#writers on tumblr #cod mw3 #call of duty #simon ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #simon riley smut

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dreamtofus · 2 days ago

Text

fuck yeah

“And you ladies are goin’ to be alright?”

“Oh yeah, cabbie’s on his way for us. You go ahead and get this one home.” Your friends giggle as they take their turns hugging you goodbye, the process taking nearly ten minutes thanks to the never ending drinks you’ve all had tonight.

It was a rare night out for you, celebrating a friends birthday at a bar with your girl gang. With your busy schedules, it was difficult to find time to get together as often, and when you did, your friends went hard. Shot after shot, drink after drink, you’d definitely been beyond tipsy for a while now.

Simon, who had come to pick you up at the end of the night, was thoroughly entertained by the sight of his intoxicated little sweetheart, all giggly and rosy cheeked. Making sure your friends has their own safe way of getting home, he slipped an arm around your waist, wanting to prevent your stumbling legs from landing you face first on the bar floor, and led you towards the exit.

“Oh my gosh.” You giggle, your own arm trying to wind behind his large muscular back. “Simon I’m so happy you’re heeeeeeere! I missed you so much.”

“S’that right?” He humours you, holding the door open with his side as he manages to steer you out of the building and out to the car park. “You an’ the girls have only been out for a few hours, lovie.”

“Well it was a flew, no a few! It was a few hours too long!” You drunkenly mumbled, making Simon’s smile widen, his mind already going over the different painkillers in your bathroom cabinet he could give you in the morning for the hangover you were sure to get. “A few hours too many, away from my Si guy! I don’t like not being with youuuuuu.”

“I know, lovie, I don’t like being apart either. But you’re allowed to have fun with the girls every once in a while.” He attempted to reason with you, fishing a hand into his jacket pocket in search of the keys. “You had fun, right?”

“Yeeesssss… but I like you! So much!”

“I like you too.” He chuckled at you. “If ya had fun s’all that matters. And I’m here now aren’t I? Said I’d come get ya.” He adds, tightening his grip around you in emphasis, not wanting to shake you too much, unsure as to exactly how many drinks you had.

“Oh my gosh that’s so nice to say…” you began drawling on before your feet came to an abrupt halt, nearly causing Simon to stumble forward himself as he stopped alongside you. “Wait…” you mumbled, eyes glancing ahead at the familiar sight of Simon’s truck. “Are you driving me?”

He can’t help but to softly chuckle to himself again, completely endeared by the way drunken you has your face scrunched up in consideration, apparently having forgotten that between the two of you, Simon would in fact be the one behind the wheel.

“I am.” He replies simply, watching you process his words.

“Okay, well, I just need to call Soap first.” You mumble, trying to pull your phone out of your back pocket with great effort.

“What’ya need to call that tosser for?” Simon asked, now the one feeling confused.

“I’ve just never actually written a will, and if you’re driving then I think I should probab- ahh!” You squeal as Simon scoops you up over his shoulder, swatting a large hand against the plump of your behind, covering the short distance to the passenger side.

“Yeah yeah, very funny, cheeky girl.” He says, opening the door and helping you into the seat before buckling you in, a smile on his face the entire time. He comes around to his side and hops in the drivers seat, starting up the engine. As he starts to pull out of the parking and back onto the main road, Simon glances towards your figure huddled up in the passenger seat, already singing along to the first thing that came up on the radio, and wonders to himself just how much you’ll remember in the morning.

The last time he’d drank with you, you were completely out of business the next day, saying that you could hardly remember a thing from the night prior, and even then he wasn’t sure you were as intoxicated as you were currently. Deciding to have a bit of fun and take a chance Simon asks you:

“Hey lovie?”

“Mhm?”

“When I ask ya to marry me, what do ya think you’ll say?”

“Uh, I will say YES! Duh!” You reply, the answer obvious to you no matter what state you’re in. However, because you are in fact drunk, you then add “and then I’m gonna get down on my knees too Si, and I’m gonna give you the best bestest head in the whole world actually is what I will do.”

“Hm, okay.” He answers casually, keeping the urge to laugh contained for a bit longer, wanting to keep teasing you. “And uh, how many kids do you think you’re gonna want us to have?”

“Simon,” you playfully sing song to him, angling yourself to face towards him and reaching a finger out to try and poke his cheek, landing more towards his shoulder. “Do you have feelings for me or something?”

“Or somethin’” he says quickly, “Come on lovie, how many babies am I puttin’ in ya, hm?”

“Mmm, at least two I think. So that at Halloween, Simon oh my gosh, at Halloween! We can do a family costume and all be ghostbuste-”

“We’re not gonna be ghostbust-”

“We will be ghostbusters.” You nod to yourself, glancing away from him as his opinion is no longer valid, before changing your mind and looking at him with all the love you can muster at that moment. “Simon, it sounds like you liiiiiiiike meeeee.” You attempt to tease. “You wanna get married? And have babies?”

“‘Course I do, lovie.”

“You think about that?”

“Every day.”

“Every day?”

“Mhm.” He confirms, sending you his own loving look.

“Well you better get me my ring then mister, cause I like yoooouuu too.” You giggle, before gasping as the song changes and starting to sing along.

He watches you in the passenger seat, a content smile upon his face as he listens to you singing without a care in the world, unaware that Simon has had your ring picked out and purchased since your first kiss. He’s just been waiting for the right time to ask you. And now that you’ve unknowingly given him your own blessing, he’s not so sure he can wait much longer.

#call of duty #call of duty fanfic #call of duty fic #simon ghost riley #simon riley #cod fanfic

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